research problems with 0.4.8 (build 2018-06-14.3f22a75)

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Curtis Cook
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research problems with 0.4.8 (build 2018-06-14.3f22a75)

#1 Post by Curtis Cook »

There are SO MANY things I don't understand about this game. The one I'll ask about here is why less research gets done than the game claims will get done.

Among other things, the game will forecast that 10 points will be spent on tech A. The next turn, no points have been added to tech A, but it still expects to put in 10 this turn. On the third turn 5 points have accumulated toward tech A, and it still expects 10 to be applied next turn.

I've had turns when I was working on five techs and NONE of them actually received any points. It's a rare turn when all techs being researched receive their forecasted amount.

What am I missing?

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: research problems with 0.4.8 (build 2018-06-14.3f22a75)

#2 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Could you post a save or screenshots that illustrate this happening?

Curtis Cook
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Re: research problems with 0.4.8 (build 2018-06-14.3f22a75)

#3 Post by Curtis Cook »

Geoff the Medio wrote:Could you post a save or screenshots that illustrate this happening?
It would have to be a couple of screenshots showing the change from one turn to the next. This means I'll have to look up how to create a screenshot again. *sigh* It'll probably be Wednesday before I play again.

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Oberlus
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Re: research problems with 0.4.8 (build 2018-06-14.3f22a75)

#4 Post by Oberlus »

In most computers, just pressing the print screen button should work. In some Windows system you'll have to be on windows model (not full-screen mode).

Curtis Cook
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Re: research problems with 0.4.8 (build 2018-06-14.3f22a75)

#5 Post by Curtis Cook »

Oberlus wrote:In most computers, just pressing the print screen button should work. In some Windows system you'll have to be on windows model (not full-screen mode).
I have an iMac. According to the Help menu's "Take pictures of screen": "You can take pictures (called screenshots) of the whole screen or a part of it by pressing certain keys on the keyboard. For example, to take a picture of the whole screen, press Shift-Command-3. Screenshots are saved automatically as .png files on the desktop; the filename begins with "Screen Shot" and includes the date and time it was taken. TIP: To copy a screenshot so you can paste it elsewhere — like in an email or to another device — press and hold the Control key while you press the other keys. For example, to copy the whole screen, press Shift-Command-Control-3."

Only problem is, it doesn't work. I just tried to take shots of the research screens for turns 26, 27, 28, 29 and 30 for my most recent game (which illustrate the problem beautifully), but no files appeared on my desktop. I also looked in Downloads and Documents, but nothing. I can't search for them using the Finder function because the Finder function hasn't worked on this machine since I got it eight years ago.

My guess is they weren't created, as I seem to recall from the last time I did this (which was two or three years ago) that when you press the four keys you hear a sound like an old Instamatic camera taking a picture. There was no sound for any of those five shots. Yes, I hate my Mac, but I've worked with Windows machines, and they're no better. I don't know why nobody makes a SIMPLE operating system; I'd sign up for "OS:D for Dummies".

Does anyone have any other suggestions?

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Vezzra
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Re: research problems with 0.4.8 (build 2018-06-14.3f22a75)

#6 Post by Vezzra »

Curtis Cook wrote:Only problem is, it doesn't work.
Strange, works flawlessly on my Mac. I have a 7 year old MBP, currently running under 10.12 Sierra. What version of OSX are you on?
Does anyone have any other suggestions?
There is a utility application for making screenshots in the "Utilities" subfolder in the Applications directory. In German it's called "Bildschirmfoto", I think the name of the app in English is "Grab". If the keyboard shortcuts don't work, try this.

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Re: research problems with 0.4.8 (build 2018-06-14.3f22a75)

#7 Post by defaultuser »

Irrelevant to the question, but Curtis's posts don't have the quote tags working for (at least for me). Does he have "Enable BBCode by default:" set to NO in preferences?

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: research problems with 0.4.8 (build 2018-06-14.3f22a75)

#8 Post by Geoff the Medio »

defaultuser wrote:Does he have "Enable BBCode by default:" set to NO in preferences?
He did. I changed it. I also edited the posts in this thread to enable it.

Curtis Cook
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Re: research problems with 0.4.8 (build 2018-06-14.3f22a75)

#9 Post by Curtis Cook »

Vezzra wrote:Strange, works flawlessly on my Mac. I have a 7 year old MBP, currently running under 10.12 Sierra. What version of OSX are you on?
10.13.5
There is a utility application for making screenshots in the "Utilities" subfolder in the Applications directory. In German it's called "Bildschirmfoto", I think the name of the app in English is "Grab". If the keyboard shortcuts don't work, try this.
This worked, thank you. It is inconvenient to use; every time you take a picture it turns off the Grab program, and you have to navigate to utilities and start it up again for the next shot. It even turns itself off if you open it and realize you're on the wrong page and navigate to another screen. Oh, well, it's done.
He did. I changed it. I also edited the posts in this thread to enable it.
Thank you.

I'm going away from keyboard for a couple of days.
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Oberlus
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Re: research problems with 0.4.8 (build 2018-06-14.3f22a75)

#10 Post by Oberlus »

As for the images, the RPs delivered to the research projects are (almost exactly) 50%.
There is a bug in there indeed.

Edit: I've checked that RC 0.4.8 with PR 2168 compiled on linux does not have this bug. RP are delivered as expected.

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Re: research problems with 0.4.8 (build 2018-06-14.3f22a75)

#11 Post by Ophiuchus »

Oberlus wrote:As for the images, the RPs delivered to the research projects are (almost exactly) 50%.
There is a bug in there indeed.
The RP shown as necessary are half of what is normal. The delivered RP would be the normal ones..

@Curtis Cook did you change the base setting for research? Did you load the game from a save file when you saw these inconsistencies?

I know that the fast ships etc. dont work if you start from a saved game (the UI is fast, but the amounts you need to spend are ack to normal), so maybe there is something wrong when loading rules from savefiles.

edit: i did a play test with "Research Cost Scaling: 0.5", and could confirm what i thought.

edit2: Issue https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/issues/2180
Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

Look, ma... four combat bouts!

Curtis Cook
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Re: research problems with 0.4.8 (build 2018-06-14.3f22a75)

#12 Post by Curtis Cook »

Ophiuchus wrote:
Oberlus wrote:As for the images, the RPs delivered to the research projects are (almost exactly) 50%.
There is a bug in there indeed.
The RP shown as necessary are half of what is normal. The delivered RP would be the normal ones..

@Curtis Cook did you change the base setting for research? Did you load the game from a save file when you saw these inconsistencies?

I know that the fast ships etc. dont work if you start from a saved game (the UI is fast, but the amounts you need to spend are ack to normal), so maybe there is something wrong when loading rules from savefiles.

edit: i did a play test with "Research Cost Scaling: 0.5", and could confirm what i thought.

edit2: Issue https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/issues/2180
I use research scaling 1.0. The default is 2.0, which didn't make sense to me when all of the other default scalings were 1.0.

So, to answer your first question, yes, I did change the base setting for research, from 2.0 to 1.0.

The second question is more problematic. I've gone backward and forward in this game a few times. It asked how many autosaves I wanted to archive, and I changed it to twenty from the default ten. I did that because I also selected for it to autosave twice a turn — at the beginning and the end of my player turn — and I wanted to be able to jump back ten turns if/when I saw something going wrong.

I've been happy with the 'save twice a turn' decision, which is a very useful feature, but the twenty autosave limit is not being honored. There are 42 archived autosaves, not 20, and they cover 16 consecutive turns (turns 21-36), not 10. This adds up only because 5 of the turns have 4 saves each instead of 2. I have no idea what's going on.

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Oberlus
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Re: research problems with 0.4.8 (build 2018-06-14.3f22a75)

#13 Post by Oberlus »

Curtis Cook wrote:The second question is more problematic. I've gone backward and forward in this game a few times. It asked how many autosaves I wanted to archive, and I changed it to twenty from the default ten. I did that because I also selected for it to autosave twice a turn — at the beginning and the end of my player turn — and I wanted to be able to jump back ten turns if/when I saw something going wrong.

I've been happy with the 'save twice a turn' decision, which is a very useful feature, but the twenty autosave limit is not being honored. There are 42 archived autosaves, not 20, and they cover 16 consecutive turns (turns 21-36), not 10. This adds up only because 5 of the turns have 4 saves each instead of 2. I have no idea what's going on.
You may have found another bug, or these misbehaviour of the autosave may be also a consequence of the bug you already discovered, that is being dealt with in issue #2180 on github.

BTW, thanks for the reports.

Curtis Cook
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Re: research problems with 0.4.8 (build 2018-06-14.3f22a75)

#14 Post by Curtis Cook »

I'm planning to close down that game this weekend, and I'll be deleting all the old saves. I may wait until the next version before trying again.

By the way, too many saves is an annoyance, not a problem. Too few would be a problem.

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