Notes on rev 5553

[Zireael]

1) Love the new names for AI designs.

[yandonman]

2) AI is mean! (rank: medium hard)

[Geoff the Medio]

Are the visibility changes related to memory and previously observed fleets now sensible, or still obviously broken / weird (and how so?)

[Dilvish]

Are the visibility changes related to memory and previously observed fleets now sensible, or still obviously broken / weird (and how so?)

It seems like you've done a great job with it overall. As a minor nit, it seems like if 'detection circles' are being drawn, then I wind up with a number of ghost detection circles staying for the entire game, even if the ghost fleets that originally gave rise to them have been cleaned up.

Also, in a game I encountered some potentially related odd behavior in two neighboring systems. To join my empire supply lines together I needed to colonize a planet in either of two neighboring systems, but the game would not put up a colonize button for me when it seemed it should. I had thought there was trouble with the auto-colonize code and was double checking that when finally I noticed that the planets still bore scan lines even when I had ships in-system. I figured that an enemy had stealthed colonies on those planets, but to respond here I double checked the log files and I find no enemies had outposts/colonies there, nor do I find any natives there nor specials that involve stealth. All I find is lines like "DEBUG Server : Object 366 : Dosis I is stale for empire 1". I'll try to look at it more later tonight.

I'd also like to complement your rendition of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Norwegian ReinRat

[Geoff the Medio]

All I find is lines like "DEBUG Server : Object 366 : Dosis I is stale for empire 1".

"stale" means that an (your) empire previously observed that object at a particular location, and based on that observation has an expected / last observed stealth level for the object that indicates you should be able to detect it again if a detector is in range, and that the empire has once again observed that location with a detector, but now doesn't detect the object despite expecting to be able to based on its last known stealth. The empire doesn't know if the object is still there, but can't see it now. The server still keeps track of and sends the latest known info about the object to the empire's player, though, and I expect a few weirdities with planets or buildings and possibly systems with the system, as a few extra checks for whether info is stale are probably needed to remove them from the UI... though it's not always clear when something should or shouldn't be shown if it's stale... Does the player want to be shown planets that it can't see but expected to, in their latest known state? This isn't done for fleets, specifically to remove the ghost fleets things on the map, but planets might warrant a different approach...

[eleazar]

Does the player want to be shown planets that it can't see but expected to, in their latest known state? This isn't done for fleets, specifically to remove the ghost fleets things on the map, but planets might warrant a different approach...

There are two reasons a planet may not be seen where expected:
1) It moved
2) It has better stealth effects than last time

[Dilvish]

All I find is lines like "DEBUG Server : Object 366 : Dosis I is stale for empire 1".

"stale" means that an (your) empire previously observed that object at a particular location, and based on that observation has an expected / last observed stealth level for the object that indicates you should be able to detect it again if a detector is in range, and that the empire has once again observed that location with a detector, but now doesn't detect the object despite expecting to be able to based on its last known stealth. The empire doesn't know if the object is still there, but can't see it now. The server still keeps track of and sends the latest known info about the object to the empire's player, though, and I expect a few weirdities with planets or buildings and possibly systems with the system, as a few extra checks for whether info is stale are probably needed to remove them from the UI... though it's not always clear when something should or shouldn't be shown if it's stale... Does the player want to be shown planets that it can't see but expected to, in their latest known state? This isn't done for fleets, specifically to remove the ghost fleets things on the map, but planets might warrant a different approach...

Ok, so it sounds like these parts are all being handled fine -- unlike with a ghost fleet, I do want to keep seeing a ghost planet pretty much forever (at least, I did until I saw eleazar's comment about planets moving). I still need to resolve the mystery of why I couldn't see the planets anymore after turn 20 or so.

Does the player want to be shown planets that it can't see but expected to, in their latest known state? This isn't done for fleets, specifically to remove the ghost fleets things on the map, but planets might warrant a different approach...

There are two reasons a planet may not be seen where expected:
1) It moved
2) It has better stealth effects than last time

Re (2) -- anything other than stealthed colonies and various types of specials that could do this? Re (1) -- huh? I don't recall reading about planets moving. Is that currently in-game?

[Sloth]

Re (2) -- anything other than stealthed colonies and various types of specials that could do this?

There's the Cloud->Ash->Void special that evolves during time. You can't see the special either when your detection strength isn't high enough.

Re (1) -- huh? I don't recall reading about planets moving. Is that currently in-game?

Planetary Starlane Drive.

[Zireael]

Ship availability is acting up for me again. Turn 28. I researched Military Robotic Control two turns ago. My homeworld has both Basic Shipyard and Orbital Drydock. Still, can't build Robotic I. EDIT: Solved, it turned out it had higher-level shields. I built a new design.

1) More pre-made designs. If you told me how to make 'em, I could maybe whip up some during Christmas break.

2) I'd love for the shields and defense meters to actually matter when defending oneself.

3) I want System Defense Mines to deal more damage. 2/turn is pathetically low.

4) If there is a fight going on (my ships present in system), there should be no bombing.

[eleazar]

There's the Cloud->Ash->Void special that evolves during time. You can't see the special either when your detection strength isn't high enough.

Unfortunately the whole point of those convoluted series of specials is that the special would give a potentially natural explanation why you couldn't see what was on the planet. Thick cloud, etc. cover is a lousy explanation for the whole planet going invisible.

[Geoff the Medio]

Unfortunately the whole point of those convoluted series of specials is that the special would give a potentially natural explanation why you couldn't see what was on the planet. Thick cloud, etc. cover is a lousy explanation for the whole planet going invisible.

Try the next build; I added a step to visibility so planets should have basic visibility for any empire that owns an object (ship, planet, fleet, building) in the same system.

[Dilvish]

1) More pre-made designs. If you told me how to make 'em, I could maybe whip up some during Christmas break.

I don't think the premade ship designs are meant to do away with the need to design ships; when I last expanded the set of premade ship designs, I intentionally held off from being anywhere near exhaustive. Especially without a better system for managing upgrades, being exhaustive would quickly swamp a player with designs, plus ship design is at least a minor strategic task of value, in my mind. The current set seemed to me about right for getting a player started & giving them enough time to learn the ropes before they necessarily had to get into designing more ships.

2) I'd love for the shields and defense meters to actually matter when defending oneself.

Well, they do help some right now, depending on how strong the attacker is, how much additional ship defense they have, etc. I would agree that they tend to be relatively minor, perhaps roughly equivalent to an extra ship per planet, & it does seem to me it would be nice for them to scale up a little more, or perhaps be augmented by buildings.

3) I want System Defense Mines to deal more damage. 2/turn is pathetically low.

By the time you're likely to have researched System Defense Mines, the 2/turn is not a lot, yeah, though I do think they help make it easier to retake a system. Perhaps a refinement that costs 2-3 times as much to research and doubles or triples the damage would be warranted.

[Zireael]

, perhaps roughly equivalent to an extra ship per planet

Extra ship? Is that at 10 defence or 30 defence? 10 shields or 50 shields?

[Dilvish]

, perhaps roughly equivalent to an extra ship per planet

Extra ship? Is that at 10 defence or 30 defence? 10 shields or 50 shields?

At whataever point your research is, if you've been putting RP into the various tech lines roughly in parallel then my thought is that the planetary defense & shield winds up roughly equivalent to having an extra ship defending.

[Zireael]

Maybe it'd be better to have shields not allowing bombing for a number of turns equal to the value/10. And to have defense contribute as one ship per every 10 or 20 of the value... This way it'd be much more important.

Right now, battles consist of sending a doomstack at a doomstack, getting creamed by another doomstack, churning out another one and getting planets requires luck, sending a troop fleet when there isn't a doomstack.