v0.4.3 + SVN 6373 ---my first play-tests in a while

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eleazar
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v0.4.3 + SVN 6373 ---my first play-tests in a while

#1 Post by eleazar »

I've been doing some play testing the last couple days, mostly early and middle game, with various starting species, though most often Chato, usually going for organic ships AI set to 'typical'.


:arrow: It seems that ship hulls and parts are still disproportionately easy to research relative to how long they take to produce. In other words, by the time you've built the prerequisite buildings and actually got a ship or 2 built, it is probably already obsolete, especially if you have a research-savvy species.

There are complicated ways to deal with the issue, Refiting interfaces proposed, or perhaps weeding out some of the less distinctive hulls and parts.

There's a simpler way to deal with it-- Simply increase the RP cost of ship parts and hulls across the board. I was thinking maybe +50% to +100% RP cost. Thus newer better ships will require more work, and be more of a special thing and less of a continual chore of updating your designs. What do you think guys who have done more playtesting than me?

The possible imbalance comes from the fact that it will take more RPs to equal the various monsters.


:arrow: In the options under "Galaxy Map" you can choose the color for "Default Starlane Color". But it only changes the color of the rings around the stars, it doesn't seem you can change the actual grey lanes.


:arrow: What's with all the nebulae flying around? Do they do anything? Is it just some kind of test?

yandonman
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Re: v0.4.3 + SVN 6373

#2 Post by yandonman »

Some nebulae negate shields, which is interesting, tactically.

A 50% RP cost increase might not be bad. Worth trying.
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: v0.4.3 + SVN 6373

#3 Post by Geoff the Medio »

eleazar wrote:What's with all the nebulae flying around? Do they do anything?
Right click them...

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Snowflake
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Re: v0.4.3 + SVN 6373

#4 Post by Snowflake »

eleazar wrote: It seems that ship hulls and parts are still disproportionately easy to research relative to how long they take to produce. ... I was thinking maybe +50% to +100% RP cost.
I agree that many organic ship hulls are too cheap to research and could use an increase, but the time it takes to build an organic shipyard is a factor as well. Perhaps slightly lowering the turns it takes to produce organic shipyards in addition to increasing the RP cost of the organic techs would greatly help the situation.
eleazar wrote: :arrow: What's with all the nebulae flying around? Do they do anything? Is it just some kind of test?
Ion Storms reduces detection and stealth.
Molecular Clouds reduce shields.
Hydrogen Nebula spawn at ceartain empty sections at the start of the game and slowly collapse into a blue or white star.

Afdal
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Re: v0.4.3 + SVN 6373

#5 Post by Afdal »

Are there ever any plans to make collapsed nebulae spawn with random planets? It seems kind of pointless otherwise. And planets do generally form along with the stars they orbit, after all.

markpi
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Re: v0.4.3 + SVN 6373

#6 Post by markpi »

hi,
i dont like the spawning of dysons now - i was lucky to find a large terran planet for my initial colony ship and my scout made sure
there was no monster - however when my ship entered the system a dyson had spawned and my colony ship was killed
my mark however had to fight another dyson that would block my homesystem
dysons are really hard to fight ( at start of a game ofc) once they grow until u have a few organics with mass driver 4 so either u kill them at once or around turn 25+ ( by then they have plenty of hit points howeverand its still a long battle )
i think it would be ok to let them spawn round 1, and maybe all 10 rounds so i can be sure a scouted system is safe for a few rounds

every player knows the problem of breaking the planetary defense around turn 100+ - more often than not u have to deal with multiple planets + outposts in one system
with 40 shields and 20(+5) attack each, and ideally i want ships with 60+ structure and deflector shield to break through to keep the losses in boundaries

though i researched endomorphic hulls ( i tend to have them just ready around turn 100 ) i still build robotic hulls ! -
with reinforced hull and 1 zortrium armor 41 structure and 3 plasma cannons lvl3 45 attack
compare this with an endormophic with 2 zortrium and 2 plasma cannons 3 - 31 structure and 30 attack only
so a ship i have at my disposal around move 25 is much better than a ship i needed x turns + a decent amount of rp to develop - this feels wrong
ok in round 200 this endomo will have a decent structure but i guess till then i want other parts in other hulls^^
at this moment there seems to be no decent alternative to asteroid hulls - i dont like them too much cause they are so slow and need forever to be repaired
while up till now i played with organics, asteroids, endomorphics, ravens into quantum hulls + sentients
now its just organics into robotic + asteroid into quantum
if they grew faster ( maybe 1 structure per turn instead ,2 ) i would reconsider building xenocoordination ships

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: v0.4.3 + SVN 6373

#7 Post by Geoff the Medio »

eleazar wrote: :arrow: In the options under "Galaxy Map" you can choose the color for "Default Starlane Color". But it only changes the color of the rings around the stars, it doesn't seem you can change the actual grey lanes.
Works fine for me...

Might have to end turn or restart the program; I set the option before starting a game.
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eleazar
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Re: v0.4.3 + SVN 6373 ---my first play-tests in a while

#8 Post by eleazar »

Re: Starlane Colors:
Yes, it does require an end-turn to update.
Afdal wrote:Are there ever any plans to make collapsed nebulae spawn with random planets? It seems kind of pointless otherwise.
Yeah, getting new planets would be pretty nifty.
Geoff the Medio wrote:
eleazar wrote:What's with all the nebulae flying around? Do they do anything?
Right click them...
I'm sure i tried to do that before. But yeah, that works.

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BraveSirKevin
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Re: v0.4.3 + SVN 6373 ---my first play-tests in a while

#9 Post by BraveSirKevin »

eleazar wrote:
Afdal wrote:Are there ever any plans to make collapsed nebulae spawn with random planets? It seems kind of pointless otherwise.
Yeah, getting new planets would be pretty nifty.
If the collapsed nebulae do spawn new planets when the coalesce into a star, that would be awesome! If this is done though, is it possible to make Nova Bomb (and the cosmic dragon's ability) destroy the star along with the system and replace it with one of these collapsing nebulae?

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Bigjoe5
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Re: v0.4.3 + SVN 6373 ---my first play-tests in a while

#10 Post by Bigjoe5 »

BraveSirKevin wrote:If the collapsed nebulae do spawn new planets when the coalesce into a star, that would be awesome! If this is done though, is it possible to make Nova Bomb (and the cosmic dragon's ability) destroy the star along with the system and replace it with one of these collapsing nebulae?
IIRC, there are/were already nebulae which coalesce into a star, so it should require only some basic scripting to randomly add some planets to the system when that occurs (although scripting a good set of possibilities to be randomly picked from could be a bit of grunt-work).
Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

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