v0.4.2 RC1 Discussion

[eleazar]

...there is a little bug in the Cynos description: they don´t give research but industry ( screen added ).

Thanks, fixed.

revision 5729

I'll probably be gone from FO work until saturday or sunday. Keep those reports coming in!

[AndrewW]

The AI didn't seem to use choke-points as much as i think is wise. Fleets were scattered over all the systems in their area, even when there was nothing in the system, and the system lead to no-where of any importance. Ships did concentrate at the choke points, but seemed to be spread out more than was useful.

Agreed, have noticed this behavour with the 5576 build anyways (problems getting the current build running here). AI ships tend to be a bit scattered to points where there isn't any real need for them to be there.

[Dilvish]

I don't know if the AI prioritizes it properly yet, but the function of the tech is a valid one -- It allows the player to more quickly steam-roll through an opponent who he dramatically outclasses.

The AI had not been researching this until at the end when filling in any missing techs, but I've now given it higher priority. I just committed a set of AI adjustments & that is included.

[eleazar]

I just committed a set of AI adjustments & that is included.

I don't know much about Python. Can i get the new functionality by replacing the old .py files with your new ones without worrying about a recompile? Will the correct .pyc files be created by running FO?

[Bigjoe5]

All this talk about Psychogenic Domination has reminded me - I think the HasTag condition might not be working, or else having a species with multiple tags is causing some sort of problem, since I was successfully taking over Trith ships with Psychogenic Domination, even though they have the Telepathic tag.

[Geoff the Medio]

... HasTag condition ...

Unlike Planet::HasTag, Ship::HasTag doesn't consider Species. It probably should. Edit: Done /Edit

Can i get the new functionality by replacing the old .py files with your new ones without worrying about a recompile? Will the correct .pyc files be created by running FO?

Yes. Nothing in the Python interface code has changed recently anyway.

[Vezzra]

I don't know much about Python. Can i get the new functionality by replacing the old .py files with your new ones without worrying about a recompile? Will the correct .pyc files be created by running FO?

Yep, it's the same as with the content scripts: as long as newer ones don't depend on certain changes to the C++ code, you can use them without recompile.

[Geoff the Medio]

How much does the cost [of techs] need to go up? 1.5x? 2x?

I'm undecided choosing between 1.5x and 2x, but both are better than the current 1.0x.

Any further input on this?

Should all tech costs go up, or perhaps just those after the first tier?

[Vezzra]

A few remarks based on my recent playtests:

• Outposts: Given the fact that they don't provide much of value by themselves (besides extending your supply network), they currently are ridiculously expensive to set up (even with the recent reduction of costs for colony and outpost modules). Besides the still very high cost for the outpost module (which also rises with every colony and outpost you already have), each outpost contributes to the cost increase for new colonies/outposts the same way a full blown colony does. That's way too much considering what you get from an outpost. If we feel that some of the things you can do with/build at outposts need to have high costs, then we should just up the costs for these things directly. So I recommend to cut the costs for the outpost module to one third of the colony module, and completely remove outposts from the cost increase mechanic.
• Gas Giant Generator: still is a build everywhere thing. As a quick solution (unless we come up with something better) I'd recommend to up it's cost significantly (at least 500 PP / 5 turns, maybe even more?). Of course that doesn't really solve the problem, but will force the player to carefully consider if and where to build one, at least during the earlier stages of the game. Potential issue: As far as I've seen, the AI makes heavy use of the GGG, so this change might impact AI performance seriously, and to get the AI to adapt to that change might not be trivial, so we might have to postpone this change after 0.4.2. Dilvish?
• Microgravity Industry: Gives it's bonus only if you have an asteroid belt with an outpost. If you settle an Exobot colony on top of that outpost, you loose that bonus. Besides not really making sense, IMO this is not indicated clearly enough in the pedia description. I'd recommend to remove that restriction, so that you get the bonus regardless if you have a colony or outpost on the asteroid belt. However, in case the general consenus is to keep that restriction, the pedia description should explicitly point out that the bonus requires an asteroid belt with an outpost, and an asteroid belt with a colony will not work.
• Production Queue: Due to the additional space the repeat build and batch build controls require the build location indicator has been removed. I sorely miss it! Of course clicking on an item in the queue centers the map window on the system where the item is being build, but apart from being a bit cumbersome to have to click on every item if you want to know their build location, just centering the system in question often enough isn't sufficiently obvious, especially when playing with a larger screen. Personally I'd prefer to put up with enlarged panels for the build items to put back the build location indicator, but please at least instead of just centering the map on the system, also select it and the planet where the item is being built in the system sideview.
• Stargates: The new stargate mechanic is great, however, the recent popularity of cost increase mechanics has struck again, in this case to a quite extrem extend (base cost 250, plus 100 per stargate you already have). Which led to the very annoying result that once I researched Stargates and enqueued a few, I was repeatedly fooled as to the build time, before I figured out what was going on. What happended? As soon as one stargate is finished being built, the cost for the remaining stargates (which have been enqueued at the same time!) is immediatly raised by 100, thus increasing the build time by 3 turns. So the next stargate is being finished only after additional 3 turns, and once that happens, the cost for all the remaining stargates of course raises by another 100 PP, and their build time by 3, and so on. So instead of waiting 10 turns for my stargates to finish (which is the minimum build time for stargates), I'll have to wait way longer, even if I've only enqueued as few as 5 stargates. Besides messing up my planning for fleet movements (which of course only happened once, now I'm forwarned ), this requires the player to take care in which order he enqueues stargates (which is a bit annoying and certainly not very much fun), and it makes building even a few stargates an overly long procedure. So, instead of a cost increase mechanic to discourage the player from building stargates everywhere, just make them a very expensive building, and probably also up the research costs for the tech. After all, stargates are a very powerful feature. I'd recommend 500 RP / 7 turns for the tech, and 1000 PP / 5 turns for the building. With this PP costs I think players won't build stargates at systems only 2 jumps away from each other, but only at certain strategic locations.

Thoughts, opinions, objections, approvals?

[unjashfan]

Outposts: Given the fact that they don't provide much of value by themselves (besides extending your supply network), they currently are ridiculously expensive to set up [......] , each outpost contributes to the cost increase for new colonies/outposts the same way a full blown colony does. That's way too much considering what you get from an outpost. If we feel that some of the things you can do with/build at outposts need to have high costs, then we should just up the costs for these things directly. So I recommend to cut the costs for the outpost module to one third of the colony module, and completely remove outposts from the cost increase mechanic.

Good point. To elaborate on extending supply, supply lanes are extended only after a supply boost tech (i.e: orbital construction) has been researched, and by the time that happens, there's hardly any need to use outposts to extend supply (in all of my recent playtests, I never needed to do this). Outposts with 0 supply don't even refuel ships, which doesn't make sense to me, so there's hardly any use for outposts aside from getting asteroid belts and building GGGs.

Gas Giant Generator: still is a build everywhere thing. As a quick solution (unless we come up with something better) I'd recommend to up it's cost significantly (at least 500 PP / 5 turns, maybe even more?). Of course that doesn't really solve the problem, but will force the player to carefully consider if and where to build one, at least during the earlier stages of the game. Potential issue: As far as I've seen, the AI makes heavy use of the GGG, so this change might impact AI performance seriously, and to get the AI to adapt to that change might not be trivial, so we might have to postpone this change after 0.4.2. Dilvish?

Have you seen the black hole power gen? It's insane!!! Back to GGGs, making the building more expensive sounds OK for me, but 500 PP might be too high. I think reducing the bonus is a better solution, since this baby stacks and gas giants are abundant. It's not too hard to find a system with 2 or 3 planets alongside 2 gas giants. I'd recommend changing the bonus to scale with population instead of giving a static bonus, because the current GGG really gives new colonies a huge boost.

Microgravity Industry: Gives it's bonus only if you have an asteroid belt with an outpost. If you settle an Exobot colony on top of that outpost, you loose that bonus. Besides not really making sense[......]

Agree.

[eleazar]

Re: Outposts
When you've researched defensive techs, outposts can provide a good extra boost to systems where you can't put colonies, but i agree they seem too expensive relative to colony ships now.

think reducing the bonus is a better solution, since this baby stacks and gas giants are abundant.

My intention was that it didn't stack with other GGG in the same system, but glancing at the script it looks like that never got put in. That at least would cut down on in-system duplicates, if the AI can learn that restriction.

[Geoff the Medio]

I recommend to cut the costs for the outpost module to one third of the colony module, and completely remove outposts from the cost increase mechanic.

I modified the colony/outpost pod cost increase to not count planets with 0 population. The outpost pod cost still increases with number of colonies, and is 2/3 the cost of a colony pod.

...the build location indicator has been removed.

It's still there if your window size is large enough. It shows up on my laptop screen, so you should just try a bigger FO window.

[Dilvish]

Outposts: ... they currently are ridiculously expensive to set up ... I recommend to cut the costs for the outpost module to one third of the colony module, and completely remove outposts from the cost increase mechanic.

I agree with the current assessment and the proposal sounds fine to me.

When you've researched defensive techs, outposts can provide a good extra boost to systems where you can't put colonies, but i agree they seem too expensive relative to colony ships now.

I agree they do have some defensive value, but at pretty much any stage I'm ever at, their defensive value is less than the value of ships I could have instead built (and more flexibly deployed). So I strongly agree that they seem too expensive, including with the limited changes Geoff has made so far that apparently just affect colony pod cost, not outpost cost. As it stands, in a "normal" game the only significant value to an outpost is for Gas Giant Generators (whose future seems very unclear) and the microgravity asteroid boost, which is more minor. By itself I doubt the microgravity boost is enough to make an outpost at current costs a sensible expenditure. In a very sparse galaxy, outposts might have some non-trivial value for extending Supply range (and I do have some AI code for assigning a little value to that for colonies, hadn't gotten around to extending it to outposts), but as has been noted, in our typical games supply-extension from an outpost seems to have trivial value compared to its cost.

[*]Gas Giant Generator: still is a build everywhere thing. As a quick solution (unless we come up with something better) I'd recommend to up it's cost significantly (at least 500 PP / 5 turns, maybe even more?). Of course that doesn't really solve the problem, but will force the player to carefully consider if and where to build one, at least during the earlier stages of the game. Potential issue: As far as I've seen, the AI makes heavy use of the GGG, so this change might impact AI performance seriously, and to get the AI to adapt to that change might not be trivial, so we might have to postpone this change after 0.4.2. Dilvish?

I'm not understanding what the suggested change is -- instead of 25/3 make it 500/5, but surely not that it needs to be build everywhere still? If that's the case I don't see it making sense to ever build. If that makes it a build-once item, then what determines which planets get the benefit? I'm ok with taking on the challenge of a quick AI adaptation for whatever change is made here; what the relative effect would be on AI and player I can't predict.

My intention was that it didn't stack with other GGG in the same system, but glancing at the script it looks like that never got put in. That at least would cut down on in-system duplicates, if the AI can learn that restriction.

yes, the AI can learn that restriction; I have something similar in place for the microgravity asteroid boost.

[Zireael]

1) Exobot Colony Ships cost should definitely scale the same as for normal colony pods.
2) Tectonic Minerology description still says 'Some sort of very aggressive mining goes here' and it does nothing except unlock Neutronium Extraction.
3) Love the ship count at the top bar.
4) Fleet kill count, as someone suggested, would be really nice.
5) Visibility of foreign fleets should be changed so that you don't see the individual fleets, just one big stack. Apart from not making the player scroll, it would help in assessing the power of the fleet.

[eleazar]

Comments from this thread that haven't really been addressed or answered or fixed. Fixes will not always be possible, but i'd like to make sure that issues aren't simply overlooked.

I've used up my FO time for today, so i won't be able to slip any of these in time for RC2.

What difficulty do the AI homeworlds name map to? aka: Haven = what? Ivory Tower = ?

The names don't seem especially obvious to me either. Suggestions?

Sensor ghost made another appearance (though it eventually cleared up)

If anybody thinks they see a ghost, please turn on detection range circles to make sure the "ghost" is currently in range of something.

Sometimes the production queue loses the count and repeat settings I give it (not sure how to repro tho)

* It is really hard to see the techs on the extreme right or lower edges of the tree. Even with the "Display" window moved out of the way, techs refuse to let you pan them into view, unless you zoom out to the point where text starts taking a legibility hit.

So perhaps we comment out Symbiotic, Protoplasmic, and Bio-Adaptive, and double or triple the cost of the remaining organic hulls?Whatever the minimum change is to make it not feel broken.

I think we need 'pedia content explaining what the thick starlane lines mean and listing the icons you can right-click on for more info.

Asteroid Reformation description is misleading - it unlocks a building and a ship part not a hull.

... and Death Ray 1 research time gets buggy then, too ( research time 16 rounds though its underfunded-
should be 17). (screen added)

It does look like it is giving him wrong totals. If Death Ray isn't getting fully funded (i.e. 62.5 RPs) then it can't be done in the minimum time of 16 turns.
EDIT: Scratch that. I forgot i just doubled research costs.

think reducing the bonus is a better solution, since this baby stacks and gas giants are abundant.

My intention was that it didn't stack with other GGG in the same system, but glancing at the script it looks like that never got put in. That at least would cut down on in-system duplicates, if the AI can learn that restriction.

Microgravity Industry: Gives it's bonus only if you have an asteroid belt with an outpost. If you settle an Exobot colony on top of that outpost, you loose that bonus. Besides not really making sense, IMO this is not indicated clearly enough in the pedia description. I'd recommend to remove that restriction, so that you get the bonus regardless if you have a colony or outpost on the asteroid belt.

Sounds good.

Stargates: The new stargate mechanic is great, however, the recent popularity of cost increase mechanics has struck again, in this case to a quite extrem extend (base cost 250, plus 100 per stargate you already have). Which led to the very annoying result that once I researched Stargates and enqueued a few, I was repeatedly fooled as to the build time, before I figured out what was going on

I do think an increasing cost makes sense for stargazes, but raising it by 40% of the base cost is indeed excessive. I'd go for a higher base cost, with no more than a 10% increase. Maybe 500 + 50 per gate.

Also can anyone verify that the new stargates work? They didn't seem to do anything special -- I did use the foci, but perhaps the description and instructions are not clear.