I keep missing a striking warning of PPs getting stockpiled

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

Moderator: Oberlus

Forum rules
Always mention the exact version of FreeOrion you are testing.

When reporting an issue regarding the AI, if possible provide the relevant AI log file and a save game file that demonstrates the issue.
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
Oberlus
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 5715
Joined: Mon Apr 10, 2017 4:25 pm

I keep missing a striking warning of PPs getting stockpiled

#1 Post by Oberlus »

Playing RC 0.4.8 with PR 2168.

I'm playing with Sly. I just loaded a game, went a few turns and then I realised I have 489 PPs in the stockpile, my production queue was empty all along, and I'm not seeing the red warning icon because my production (31) is too small compared to the stockpile limit (12.2) to trigger it.

I suggest using a yellow version of the red icon to be shown when any PP is getting stockpile (if the red icon is not triggered).

Edit: Maybe better, stick to just the red icon, but add another condition to trigger it: the stockpile has more than maximum use * 10 (ten turns to empty it).

User avatar
Dilvish
AI Lead and Programmer Emeritus
Posts: 4768
Joined: Sat Sep 22, 2012 6:25 pm

Re: I keep missing a striking warning of PPs getting stockpi

#2 Post by Dilvish »

Oberlus wrote:I suggest using a yellow version of the red icon to be shown when any PP is getting stockpile (if the red icon is not triggered).

Edit: Maybe better, stick to just the red icon, but add another condition to trigger it: the stockpile has more than maximum use * 10 (ten turns to empty it).
Overall seems like a decent issue to address better than it is now. I kind of think I like combining the two ideas-- yellow icon if you are sending any PP to stockpile AND the stockpile is greater than 10x max_use

How about you open up a Issue for that? You can leave the milestone TBD; I don't think it's a true bug right now, but that is a subjective matter here I think, and given as this is at least so closely related to the core of 0.4.8 and would be fairly simple, perhaps Vezzra might consider allowing it in.
If I provided any code, scripts or other content here, it's released under GPL 2.0 and CC-BY-SA 3.0

User avatar
Oberlus
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 5715
Joined: Mon Apr 10, 2017 4:25 pm

Re: I keep missing a striking warning of PPs getting stockpi

#3 Post by Oberlus »

Done, issue #2175.
I don't know how to assign labels. Is it just by adding [TBD] in the title?

User avatar
Vezzra
Release Manager, Design
Posts: 6095
Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2011 12:56 pm
Location: Sol III

Re: I keep missing a striking warning of PPs getting stockpi

#4 Post by Vezzra »

Dilvish wrote:I don't think it's a true bug right now, but that is a subjective matter here I think, and given as this is at least so closely related to the core of 0.4.8 and would be fairly simple, perhaps Vezzra might consider allowing it in.
I've set it to optional for 0.4.8 now. Less because it's part of the core feature of this release, but because I think the detrimental effects on gameplay are serious enough to warrant at least inclusion into the release if a fix is provided reasonably soon.

I don't want to go so far as to block the release because of this though.
Oberlus wrote:I don't know how to assign labels. Is it just by adding [TBD] in the title?
I've assigned the labels and the milestone.

User avatar
Dilvish
AI Lead and Programmer Emeritus
Posts: 4768
Joined: Sat Sep 22, 2012 6:25 pm

Re: I keep missing a striking warning of PPs getting stockpi

#5 Post by Dilvish »

Oberlus, I just noticed that when you wrote up the Issue for this matter, you had made a new design proposal there that you didn't repeat here. Scattering different proposals around doesn't work well, we try to keep such discussions focused in the design thread like this.

Also to note here, your feedback from the current PR:
Tested. Works as you describe. To be explicit:

Red warning icon appears when contribution of current turn is greater than 10x max use.
Yellow warning icon appears when contribution of current turn will put total stockpile over 10x max use.
I'd like a different behaviour:

Red warning icon appears when contribution of current turn will put total stockpile over 10x max use.
Yellow warning icon appears when contribution of current turn will put total stockpile over 3x max use.
Thus I'd have an earlier warning that my queue is getting empty, after 2 or 3 turns instead of 9 or 10.
edit: to note that this summary above is not quite correct-- the top trigger remains unchanged by this PR-- red if the total current contribution is > 3x max use.

What is the scenario in which you don't get a warning from the current PR for 9 or 10 turns? I think the original scenario you cited would be much closer to the lower range of 2-3 turns you request now (it would probably kick in at 4 turns there) than it would be to the 9-10 turns.

That's not to say that I think the design necessarily needs to stay the way it is. Thinking about it a bit more, I am inclined to think that there should be additional triggers for the icons, independent of the stockpile max use-- the red icon could also be triggered anytime the current stockpile contribution is more than 80% of current production, and the yellow if it is more than 40%.

Regarding reducing the yellow-icon trigger level vs max stockpile use, I'll continue mulling it, but currently I'm thinking that especially if we added the above 2 triggers I just mentioned, then the stockpile-use trigger for the yellow icon is probably better somewhere between 6x and the current 10x.
If I provided any code, scripts or other content here, it's released under GPL 2.0 and CC-BY-SA 3.0

User avatar
Oberlus
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 5715
Joined: Mon Apr 10, 2017 4:25 pm

Re: I keep missing a striking warning of PPs getting stockpi

#6 Post by Oberlus »

Dilvish wrote:try to keep such discussions focused in the design thread like this
Understood, I'll make all discussion always in the thread and only quote relevant parts in github comments.
Dilvish wrote:What is the scenario in which you don't get a warning from the current PR for 9 or 10 turns?
The yellow icon triggers when CurrentStockpile+CurrentInput>10xMaxOutput. For empires with MaxOutput comparable to Production, this does not trigger until CurrentStockpile+CurrentInput>10xProduction, which happens after roughly 9 turns of total production going into the stockpile with a building queue empty for all that time, without any warning icon showing up. In general, the icon triggers when you have nearly 10*MaxOutput/Production turns of production in the stockpile. For species with bad stockpiling, this means less than half a turn, which seems too early. For Sly focused on research or with extra stockpiling techs this means 10 turns, intolerable.
Reducing the 10x thresshold as I suggested would imply a too early icon for empires with Production>>MaxOutput (triggering the icon when they have less than a fraction of production per turn in the stockpile, making the warning meaningless).
The solution you depict, with the condition of directly comparing Production and CurrentStockpile+CurrentInput, should work charms. 80% for the red icon to mean "you are putting into stockpile most of your production, your queue is getting empty" and yellow icon with 40% (or maybe better 20%) to say "you are putting a considerable part of your production into stockpile, you sure you don't want to add something else to your queue?".
I would remove the other two conditions, since the one for the red icon is overriden by the new one, and the one introduced in this PR for the yellow icon (CurrentStockpile+CurrentInput>10xMaxOutput) would still show the icon too early for bad stockpiling species and be overriden for the other species.

User avatar
Vezzra
Release Manager, Design
Posts: 6095
Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2011 12:56 pm
Location: Sol III

Re: I keep missing a striking warning of PPs getting stockpi

#7 Post by Vezzra »

Dilvish wrote:That's not to say that I think the design necessarily needs to stay the way it is. Thinking about it a bit more, I am inclined to think that there should be additional triggers for the icons, independent of the stockpile max use-- the red icon could also be triggered anytime the current stockpile contribution is more than 80% of current production, and the yellow if it is more than 40%.
I think making the triggers for the warning icons dependent on the ratio of "current stockpile contribution" to "current production" is basically the better approach.

However, personally I'd very much prefer the part of the original proposal where you get a warning icon as soon as there is any input to the stockpile (simply because I still think the stockpile feature should be considered a special case feature and a exception to the standard gameplay, not available to all right from game start, and therefore the standard gameplay be without any stockpile at all - hence the need for a warning if there are any PP not used up by the items in the production queue). But I can live with it if you guys really don't want a warning icon for any PP going into the stockpile, only if certain levels are reached. There is still the stockpile indicator itself after all.

Which reminds me: what about the supply lines changing color to indicate PP waste? That used to happen when any PP were wasted, what's the condition for that now?

I don't have any strong preference as when to display the red icon. I still haven't had time for playtesting, so no real experience with the stockpile feature, so I can't really provide meaningful input... sorry...

Jaumito
Space Kraken
Posts: 189
Joined: Tue May 16, 2017 3:42 am
Location: Catalonia, France, Europe, Earth, Sol, Orion Arm, Milky Way, Virgo Cluster

Re: I keep missing a striking warning of PPs getting stockpi

#8 Post by Jaumito »

Would it be too difficult to have the warning icon's color be a continuous function rather than using thresholds? Like, starting as a bright yellow when >0%, getting progressively redder as the contibution rate increases?

Ophiuchus
Programmer
Posts: 3433
Joined: Tue Sep 30, 2014 10:01 am
Location: Wall IV

Re: I keep missing a striking warning of PPs getting stockpi

#9 Post by Ophiuchus »

There were i think two or three discussions around different warning types / traffic lights for imperial stockpile (Maybe somebody can link those).

Some points which should not be lost:
  • the signs should have a different shape for color-blind people (this shouldnt block the 0.4.8 release)
  • there is a legitimate but slightly irritating way of stockpile input: stockpile projects. So the legitimate stockpile input must not be considered when calculating the warning conditions (at least for some of those)
  • the current meaning of no warning at the moment: even if the input in the stockpile is not really intended, it is not a problem because it is easy to take out the PP of the stockpile (e.g. it takes three turns); you dont have to go to managing the build queue for this.
I would prefer something along the following lines:
  • if the stockpile is empty there should be a warning if there is more illegitimate input than 3 times the use limit (like it was).
  • if there is at least ten times the use limit in the stockpile, there should be a warning if there is any illegitimate input to the stockpile
  • if there is at least ten times the use limit in the stockpile, there should be a notice if the stockpile increases
  • there could be some linear threshold between 0PP in stockpile and "full stockpile" (i.e. 10 times the input limit) for the warning, but maybe thats unnessecarily complex
According to Oberlus the implementation of PR-220 does change the warning from 3 times the input to 10 times the input. I think this is not sufficient, there should be an earlier notice/warning. ... after reading the code i am actually not sure that the 3 times warning isnt in place.. will have to playtest

edit:
Actually a nice linear threshold for warning could be:
  • empty stockpile - 4 times use limit or more triggers warning
  • less than 5 times use limit - 3 times use limit or more triggers warning
  • less than 8 times use limit - 2 times use limit or more triggers warning
  • less than 10 times use limit - 1 times use limit or more triggers warning
  • 10 times or more use limit - any input to stockpile triggers warning
Last edited by Ophiuchus on Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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!

User avatar
Dilvish
AI Lead and Programmer Emeritus
Posts: 4768
Joined: Sat Sep 22, 2012 6:25 pm

Re: I keep missing a striking warning of PPs getting stockpi

#10 Post by Dilvish »

Vezzra wrote:I think making the triggers for the warning icons dependent on the ratio of "current stockpile contribution" to "current production" is basically the better approach.
There is still the stockpile indicator itself after all.
Right, that's the one that I really rely on most myself. It shows the precise amount going in or out, and I find it to be just as noticeable as the alarm icon next to the industry icon.
Which reminds me: what about the supply lines changing color to indicate PP waste? That used to happen when any PP were wasted, what's the condition for that now?
There hasn't been any change to the condition for that, so it switches color if there is any PP being unspent and "falling-through" into the IS. Intentionally transferring the PP into the IS won't trigger it. I think it's best for it to remain the way it is.
Jaumito wrote:Would it be too difficult to have the warning icon's color be a continuous function rather than using thresholds? Like, starting as a bright yellow when >0%, getting progressively redder as the contibution rate increases?
The controls used for this do have a method for setting their color. Right now since the icon is bi-colored (multi-colored really if you look at it closely), and we swap back and forth between two preset versions, I think that wouldn't work with it as it is. But it might be possible to break it down into a simple plain white background icon, over which a single-colored overlay icon is placed, and that overlay icon could have its color scaled smoothly, I expect.
Ophiuchus wrote:the signs should have a different shape for color-blind people (this shouldnt block the 0.4.8 release)
While we generally do aim for that, since these icons are essentially redundant with the IS transfer amount icon along with other presented info, I think it's OK if they vary only by color.
According to Oberlus the implementation of PR-220 does change the warning from 3 times the input to 10 times the input. . after reading the code i am actually not sure that the 3 times warning isnt in place.. will have to playtest
Right, the 3x limit is still in place-- Oberlus mis-stated and I forgot to correct it when I copied the comment over and responded (I've edited the post above to clarify that now)
If I provided any code, scripts or other content here, it's released under GPL 2.0 and CC-BY-SA 3.0

User avatar
Dilvish
AI Lead and Programmer Emeritus
Posts: 4768
Joined: Sat Sep 22, 2012 6:25 pm

Re: I keep missing a striking warning of PPs getting stockpi

#11 Post by Dilvish »

OK, I've revised the PR, so that the new triggers are

Code: Select all

    // red "waste" icon if the non-project transfer to IS is more than either 3x per-turn use or 80% total output
    // else yellow icon if the non-project transfer to IS is more than 20% total output, or if there is any transfer
    // to IS and the IS is expected to be above 10x per-turn use.
If I provided any code, scripts or other content here, it's released under GPL 2.0 and CC-BY-SA 3.0

User avatar
Oberlus
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 5715
Joined: Mon Apr 10, 2017 4:25 pm

Re: I keep missing a striking warning of PPs getting stockpi

#12 Post by Oberlus »

Playing RC2.
The current system of warning icons is great.

Post Reply