Fog of war

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Magnate
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Fog of war

#1 Post by Magnate »

Hi all,

How hard is it to hide the Pedia info on what other players have researched? I find it really immersion-breaking that every other empire knows exactly what I have researched every turn. Plus it doesn't fit with other aspects of the game, like not being able to see the true power of your enemy's plasma cannons if you haven't researched them yet.

Can it be switched off? If so, how? If not, how hard would it be to implement? I'm happy to do some hacking...

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Fog of war

#2 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Magnate wrote: Wed Aug 19, 2020 9:15 am...not being able to see the true power of your enemy's plasma cannons if you haven't researched them yet.
Can someone point me to where this is discussed? I don't remember or immediately see why it matters what the client has researched for predicting what enemy ships' meters will be...
Can it be switched off? If so, how? If not, how hard would it be to implement? I'm happy to do some hacking...
Probably need to add a check when serializing, such as here to only send the real tech info if the encoding empire matches the id of the empire being serialized or if they are allies, similar to the stuff below about sending production and research queues.

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Oberlus
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Re: Fog of war

#3 Post by Oberlus »

Geoff the Medio wrote: Wed Aug 19, 2020 11:05 am Can someone point me to where this is discussed? I don't remember or immediately see why it matters what the client has researched for predicting what enemy ships' meters will be...
I can't seem to find it. I think it's buried in some of the "Xth game on multiplayer game server" threads or in the "Multiplayer slow game server" thread.
What I remember:
In some game, after complaints about researched techs leak through pedia, o0eg disabled that info being transmitted to the clients. The side effect was that the predicted damage of enemy weapons was calculated right when you got the same of greater tech for that weapon, or when you didn't have that weapon yet but the enemy had it at level 1 (so if you have MD1 and L3, you can see the right damage for enemy L1, L2 and L3, and also right for enemy DR1, but will see L3 for an enemy L4, MD1 for an enemy MD2-4, and DR1 for enemy DR2-4). That was even more problematic for the players and the leakage of empire techs was preferred.
o01eg might be able to give better feedback.
Geoff the Medio wrote: Wed Aug 19, 2020 11:05 am
Magnate wrote: Wed Aug 19, 2020 9:15 amCan it be switched off? If so, how? If not, how hard would it be to implement? I'm happy to do some hacking...
Probably need to add a check when serializing, such as here to only send the real tech info if the encoding empire matches the id of the empire being serialized or if they are allies, similar to the stuff below about sending production and research queues.
Or we could just disable the Pedia page [Game - Empires], the one that lists (known) assets of each empire, still allowing the client to know other empires' techs, just not showing them to the player. Only problem with that is with hacky players that sniff the client-server communications...

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Fog of war

#4 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Oberlus wrote: Wed Aug 19, 2020 11:12 am...o0eg disabled that info being transmitted to the clients [but that] was even more problematic for the players and the leakage of empire techs was preferred.
So the change was reverted and all tech info is sent? That would be more consistent with what's in the code now; I was confused as I thought it still didn't send other empires' tech info.

Probably needs to be a rule, then, if implemented.
Or we could just disable the Pedia page [Game - Empires], the one that lists (known) assets of each empire, still allowing the client to know other empires' techs, just not showing them to the player. Only problem with that is with hacky players that sniff the client-server communications...
Not really an acceptable solution to just hide info client side, for various reasons.

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Oberlus
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Re: Fog of war

#5 Post by Oberlus »

Geoff the Medio wrote: Wed Aug 19, 2020 11:58 am
Oberlus wrote: Wed Aug 19, 2020 11:12 am...o0eg disabled that info being transmitted to the clients [but that] was even more problematic for the players and the leakage of empire techs was preferred.
So the change was reverted and all tech info is sent? That would be more consistent with what's in the code now; I was confused as I thought it still didn't send other empires' tech info.

Probably needs to be a rule, then, if implemented.
But weapon level info should be passed anyway to avoid players complaining of unknown damage?
People discussed some ideas:
- Show damage as unknown if enemy weapon level was greater of own researched level or the weapon was unresearched. Some didn't like it.
- Since real damage can be seen in combat logs, show damage after first encounter with that unknown weapon/level (i.e. update knowledge of weapon techs after enountering them). Didn't seem easy to implement.

Magnate
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Re: Fog of war

#6 Post by Magnate »

For anyone looking at the previous thread, it's https://freeorion.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11400

I hadn't realised that it was switching off the info leakage that caused the weapon damage numbers to show incorrectly. We definitely want one but not the other!

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