Re: Thoughts on latest release...
Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2016 11:16 pm
One of the things you can do when you get near the end of what you want to research is to switch all planets to production (that can).
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Yup, and being able to do this from the Objects menu has made gameplay at this point SOOoooo MUCH EASIERdefaultuser wrote:One of the things you can do when you get near the end of what you want to research is to switch all planets to production (that can).
Agreed. The only problem is that you need to have a fairly high research into Growth before they can colonize there. In a sparse area, I will often do the "Exobot Shuffle", that is starting colonies on asteroid belts before they can live there, and moving them around in the production queue to keep from completing until Growth catches up. It's micromanage-y, but it works. I asked about a way to freeze items on the build queue, and I think they might be looking at that.ovarwa wrote:* Exobots+Microgravity is a potent combination. Especially if your main species' Industry has a problem. Usually, I would rather colonize using my main (and probably better species), but my starting situation was sparse and not so great for my species, so settling bots on Asteroids was attractive, even though I was already a robotic species.
Sure, but I don't worry too much about it. Many games I never research anything for core slots.* I notice that I keep reaching hulls with core slots before there is anything to put there. This isn't so hard to do if you're not going for Solar Hulls.
The worst is if they have Experimenters in their area. They let the spawn run wild and wreck up the joint, for me to clean up later.* I noticed that the AI players don't seem to do their fair share of active monster abatement. Even when I have very few ships (and I tend to postpone military whenever possible), I try to hunt baby monsters before they grow. The game's graphs have me way, way ahead of everyone else in that regard in this game. That might be because my empire is sparse, with many empty sectors, but the Laenfa next door have similar 'terrain', at least near me.
* The AI does seem to understand the benefit of outposting a Nest Special.
Yeah. More clicking! It would be good to have a separate "defer" list. So there's a production queue, which I'd like to open as a window (not a screen) and right-clicking on an item gives me the option to move it off the queue onto a defer list, which I don't have to look at unless I open that as a separate window; or, the queue has a second pane for that stuff. Then I can move the deferred stuff back onto the production queue at my leisure.defaultuser wrote:It's micromanage-y, but it works. I asked about a way to freeze items on the build queue, and I think they might be looking at that.
Not a worry, but a design issue: Core slots should be desirable! One way to make them desirable is to strew the early tree with cool core slot items that appear with techs you're getting anyway. Then there's an extra incentive to get the core items. If core stuff is non-essential, core slots become a big shrug. Another way to make them desirable is to allow a core slot to increase the effect of a non-core shield or weapon placed there, say, by 50%. Another way is to allow a core slot to be used as an internal or external slot.Sure, but I don't worry too much about it. Many games I never research anything for core slots.* I notice that I keep reaching hulls with core slots before there is anything to put there. This isn't so hard to do if you're not going for Solar Hulls.
I haven't played that far yet! For me, the worst is that letting monsters run wild hurts the AIs more than it hurts me, which makes them less challenging because they are stunted.The worst is if they have Experimenters in their area. They let the spawn run wild and wreck up the joint, for me to clean up later.
A zip of the most recent autosave plus freeorion.log and freeoriond.log uploaded to a Gihub issue is always the best approach here, there are always going to be edge case crashes with the massive number of OS/hardware/graphics driver/etc configurations but we want to squash as many as we can.ovarwa wrote:Hi,
Of course, probably the most important UI feature to look at is a button to disable the periodic BSoD that I get! (As well as the occasional CTD.)
(Any files you want from that?)
Yup, a huge part of me wants to make asteroids a hostile environment for most races but the balance issues are immense. I also think that microgravity is a bit overpowered for what it is, in some ways.* Exobots+Microgravity is a potent combination. Especially if your main species' Industry has a problem. Usually, I would rather colonize using my main (and probably better species), but my starting situation was sparse and not so great for my species, so settling bots on Asteroids was attractive, even though I was already a robotic species.
Sometimes the AI makes some, um, interesting decisions. If you do see something that's that daft, then again a recent autosave and the AI log for that AI zipped up will help: sometimes it can just be that they have priorities and missions, and the fleet is needed elsewhere for a higher priority (eg an invasion you can't see), othertimes it's simply the AI messed up: the latter ought to be fixed.* Weirdly, I saw the AI send a fleet into a monster-guarded system within the AI's detection range, beat the guardians down almost to death and then leave without taking and keeping the system. This happened twice, two different AIs for two different systems. The AI would not have lost a ship. In one case, it was the Eassaux (sp) who backed off with a rather decent fleet (hard to suck with 2 levels of good pilot), and a third AI with a lesser fleet took the system 2 turns later. (I'll be coming in in 10 turns with Titanics that are being built.)
Titans aren't a flagship, Scattered Asteroids are, the latter have fleet bonus abilities, Titans alongside Logistics Facilitators are one of the scariest combos you can deploy. Currently, the hulls are roughly balanced against each other in prodction cost vs game effect, the tech tree needs work.* I reserached my way to and deployed Titanic Hulls for the first time. This seems better than Scattered Asteroid but costs fewer RPs to reach.
Yup: I deliberately added Core Slots to the Robotic/Constructed line earlier whereas other lines only get them in flagships, but there aren't a huge number of core slot items yet: there will be more and we actively want new ideas for things to put there, the Planetary Beacon is the most recent, the Spinal Antimatter gun is also newish, if you have other ideas for really cool things, please open a thread for them, even if you've no idea how to code it a good idea can be scripted by anyone.* I notice that I keep reaching hulls with core slots before there is anything to put there. This isn't so hard to do if you're not going for Solar Hulls.
Aye, the balance within that line isn't as good as I'd like, but way better than it was: I personally see the nanorobotic hull fit well as a Battlecruiser analogue, good for semi independent operations, skirmishes, etc whereas the Gravitic is meant to be a mainline battleship.* I like the Nano-Robotic Hull better than Self-Gravitating... but I went for the latter because I even more prefer a Titanic Hull, for which I don't need the NRH at all. So I don't expect any player who wants Titanic Hulls to ever deploy NRH: NRH is a speedbump on the way to Logistics Facilitator, which is itself redundant with NRH.
Agree here, not my field but monster management doesn't seem to be something the AI prioritises, whereas I put it up fairly highly.* I noticed that the AI players don't seem to do their fair share of active monster abatement. Even when I have very few ships (and I tend to postpone military whenever possible), I try to hunt baby monsters before they grow. The game's graphs have me way, way ahead of everyone else in that regard in this game. That might be because my empire is sparse, with many empty sectors, but the Laenfa next door have similar 'terrain', at least near me.
Yup, but isn't so good at guarding said nests afterwards, troops are cheaper than outposts* The AI does seem to understand the benefit of outposting a Nest Special.
Ah, yeah, new feature, because I don't use bases I never notice, probably needs better documentation: troops are meant to do similar but that needs some more work.* I have noticed that creating a colony base (sometimes) depletes the population of the originating planet. I created one CB, and then the second went to Never on the production screen because the pop dipped. I had Cryonic colony pods, and the pop dipped by 3, so this was not a coincidence. I've gone to creating Outpost Bases and then Colonies.
Oh, you're missing a lot, some of the native species are really cool. It is a massively different game though.* I still haven't turned on natives. Not sure what this will do for balance, other than ruin life for Xenophobes.
Deliberately, yes, and they massively benefit from a native rich galaxy as well.Still having fun... and have yet to try out the Egassem, who probably play differently from all the other species.
That has already been implemented, you should be able to use that feature with recent test builds.defaultuser wrote:I asked about a way to freeze items on the build queue, and I think they might be looking at that.
I will look into that.Vezzra wrote:That has already been implemented, you should be able to use that feature with recent test builds.defaultuser wrote:I asked about a way to freeze items on the build queue, and I think they might be looking at that.
Scarily enough, my hw is very vanilla: Sandy Bridge with 4gb ram and integrated graphics. I'll rememeber files.MatGB wrote:there are always going to be edge case crashes with the massive number of OS/hardware/graphics driver/etc configurations but we want to squash as many as we can.
Yeah. Lots of Asteroids. More interesting if some species get them, I think, say, in combination with Narrow. So a robotic species that has one good type, 2 poor types, Asteroids as Adequate and the rest Hostile... that's interesting. Or even a species with Asteroids as their good environment. Balance issues are interesting, yeah.Yup, a huge part of me wants to make asteroids a hostile environment for most races but the balance issues are immense. I also think that microgravity is a bit overpowered for what it is, in some ways.
I did notice that. Still, I'd rather have a fleet of Titans than a fleet of SA. The SA might have better flagship capabilities, but is a lesser Ship of the Line. Being able to add an LF on top is nice too.Titans aren't a flagship, Scattered Asteroids are, the latter have fleet bonus abilities, Titans alongside Logistics Facilitators are one of the scariest combos you can deploy. Currently, the hulls are roughly balanced against each other in prodction cost vs game effect, the tech tree needs work.* I reserached my way to and deployed Titanic Hulls for the first time. This seems better than Scattered Asteroid but costs fewer RPs to reach.
I didn't notice the Antimatter Gun 2 years ago, yeah., the Spinal Antimatter gun is also newish, if you have other ideas for really cool things, please open a thread for them, even if you've no idea how to code it a good idea can be scripted by anyone.
Hmm. Except that the damage control techs do much of that job. These stack with Robotic Hulls and LFs, iirc, so getting the first 2 damage controls and then going straight for Titanic lets you use Gravitics and then Titanics as battlecruisers too.Aye, the balance within that line isn't as good as I'd like, but way better than it was: I personally see the nanorobotic hull fit well as a Battlecruiser analogue, good for semi independent operations, skirmishes, etc whereas the Gravitic is meant to be a mainline battleship.* I like the Nano-Robotic Hull better than Self-Gravitating... but I went for the latter because I even more prefer a Titanic Hull, for which I don't need the NRH at all. So I don't expect any player who wants Titanic Hulls to ever deploy NRH: NRH is a speedbump on the way to Logistics Facilitator, which is itself redundant with NRH.
Pretty much no game gets this right. Either big wins or small wins.When Influence comes in, different hulls will have different upkeep costs and having smaller hulls will in some ways be advantageous, I really want to move us away from the "always build the best you've got" approach the current mechanic encourages: you should need/want 'lesser' ships for patrol duty, garrisons, pickets, monster hunting, pirate stomping, etc. A squadron of Nanorobotic ships should be good for independent operations dealing with incursions, but not be needed in the main battle fleets: we're not there yet, but that doesn't mean we want to take them out in the meantime. I use them quite heavily, cost/benefit they're very good and I deliberately cheapened their research costs recently but the balance just isn't right.
Of course, it isn't so good at guarding anything.Yup, but isn't so good at guarding said nests afterwards, troops are cheaper than outposts
Hmm. Unless creating a colony from an outpost has the same effect, better to obsolete colony bases entirely, since anyone who knows won't use them. As for troops... yeah, that will need lots of work.Ah, yeah, new feature, because I don't use bases I never notice, probably needs better documentation: troops are meant to do similar but that needs some more work.
Just turned them on. It's a different game, for sure. A lot more entropic. There are more awesome systems now, but also more challenges. In one game, I can start utterly blocked in by sentries and sentinels and the only natives are useless gardeners with lots of troops and with a drone factory 4 hops away (on the other side of a guardian)... In another, I can be the Gyasche with a few good worlds nearby, the local natives are the +3 pilot race and the 200% industry race, the easy maintenance ship is guarding ruins that contain the +10 shield, and there are lots of asteroids for me to deposit Exobots.Oh, you're missing a lot, some of the native species are really cool. It is a massively different game though.* I still haven't turned on natives. Not sure what this will do for balance, other than ruin life for Xenophobes.
If there isn't anyone sufficiently nearby to pummel, and no suitable planets, the Egassem are toasty. Because by the time they reach something to pummel, a fast research race with a few worlds and Adaptive Automation can outproduce the Egassem quite handily. But entropy can happen to anyone. Gyasche with no other worlds to colonize unless monsters are killed are also very unhappy, I discovered.Deliberately, yes, and they massively benefit from a native rich galaxy as well.Still having fun... and have yet to try out the Egassem, who probably play differently from all the other species.
With or without natives, Egassem absolutely need to speed blitz opponents, they'll never win a research war but can easily outproduce anyone. Have fun (they're currently my favourite species to play)
Bug.ovarwa wrote:Sometimes when the research or production queue is longer than what fits on the screen, scrolling stops working properly: when I scroll down, the list snaps back to the top. Is this a UI setting or is it a bug?
Never noticed that (because I never resize the queue window). But even if there is some other way of fixing that than editing config.xml, the fact that you have to ask makes this an UI glitch which should be addressed properly. Can you open a github issue for this?On the research screen, it is possible to widen the queue window so that it underlaps the tech tree. But then it is not possible to readjust the queue window, because the tech screen is on top. Is there a better way to fix this than going into the config XML?
Bug.Vezzra wrote:ovarwa wrote:Sometimes when the research or production queue is longer than what fits on the screen, scrolling stops working properly: when I scroll down, the list snaps back to the top. Is this a UI setting or is it a bug?
Ah, good, so that one is known already. It's affecting me, too. Played about 250 turns into the game before it struck, now I can't get it not to happen. Sadly, I can't give you much of a bug report. I was doing some kind of production queue manipulation the moment it first happened, but I don't remember what. Adjusting the order of something by drag-and-drop, maybe? Not completely sure now. All I do remember for sure is my production queue was seriously butt-long at the time, at least five times the window height. It was either the turn of, or the turn after a black kraken escaped my quarantine perimeter, and decided to squat on the system where I was spending 3/4ths of my total production on shipbuilding. So as not to waste the PP, in case he stayed and cut off that system from all other supply, I added a whole bunch of other projects on other systems to the queue. Then the bug struck, and I found it impossible to reach those duress-added items to reorder or cancel them, making me stuck with the warships already queued for quite a while, in the midst of beating back a black kraken outbreak.