Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

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Dilvish
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#166 Post by Dilvish »

MatGB wrote:The only reason I dislike Elliptical is it's too cramped, if it were spread out a bit more it'd be a nice setup.
I agree, that is the biggest problem with it. We can probably do something about that pretty easily; Vezzra already did something similar for Irregular2. if you go to default/python/universe_generation/galaxy.py and add the following after line 100:

Code: Select all

    if shape == fo.galaxyShape.elliptical:
        width *= 1.4
that would probably fix it up.
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pheldens
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#167 Post by pheldens »

Just played a round with irregular 2, and I like it more than the predictable elliptical, there seems to be more map strategy with it.

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Dilvish
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#168 Post by Dilvish »

Dilvish wrote:
MatGB wrote:The only reason I dislike Elliptical is it's too cramped, if it were spread out a bit more it'd be a nice setup.
I agree, that is the biggest problem with it. We can probably do something about that pretty easily; Vezzra already did something similar for Irregular2. if you go to default/python/universe_generation/galaxy.py and add the following after line 100:

Code: Select all

    if shape == fo.galaxyShape.elliptical:
        width *= 1.4
that would probably fix it up.
I've tried this and it seems an improvement to me-- anyone object to expanding the starlane distances of the Elliptical Galaxy shape by a factor of 1.4?
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Vezzra
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#169 Post by Vezzra »

Dilvish wrote:anyone object to expanding the starlane distances of the Elliptical Galaxy shape by a factor of 1.4?
Nope, as far as I'm concerned, go ahead.

pheldens
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#170 Post by pheldens »

I agree, space should feel vast, it plays almost no role now in my games against AI

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#171 Post by Geoff the Medio »

If it's just a matter of adjusting a parameter, "average inter-system spacing" could be an advanced galaxy setup option, available for any galaxy generator...

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Dilvish
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#172 Post by Dilvish »

Geoff the Medio wrote:If it's just a matter of adjusting a parameter, "average inter-system spacing" could be an advanced galaxy setup option, available for any galaxy generator...
It is a simple matter to adjust a scale factor, and could easily be offered as a distance scale factor (ranging from 0.5 to 3, or somesuch); translating that to an actual average distance is a trickier matter (but probably still possible to make a reasonable estimate of).

Offering it in terms of "average inter-system spacing" would require us to know an analytic relationship for each galaxy shape, taking galaxy dimensions and total stars, and yielding average inter-system spacing. For the Irregular1/Box galaxy a decent estimate would probably just be width divided by the square root of the total number of systems. For the other galaxy shapes we could probably get a reasonable approximation by starting with that same calculation as an interim result and then apply some multiplicative factor for that shape (corresponding to what portion of the total box typically gets used by that shape).
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#173 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Dilvish wrote:Offering it in terms of "average inter-system spacing" would require us to know an analytic relationship for each galaxy shape, taking galaxy dimensions and total stars, and yielding average inter-system spacing.
It could also be a post-processing step after picking system locations... Take all starlanes, or potential starlanes by some definition, find their length, calculate the average, apply the appropriate scaling factor to make the lanes the desired average length.

A scaling factor would also work almost as well, though.

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Dilvish
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#174 Post by Dilvish »

Geoff the Medio wrote:It could also be a post-processing step after picking system locations... Take all starlanes, or potential starlanes by some definition, find their length, calculate the average, apply the appropriate scaling factor to make the lanes the desired average length.
Ah, right, good thinking.
A scaling factor would also work almost as well, though.
Yes, though I expect the extra bit of clarity by specifying an actual average starlane length would be much appreciated over a more general scale factor; I think the approach you came up with would be the one to go with.
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Scara
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#175 Post by Scara »

Hi,
I have two things:

- I asked myself for what to do with the information "underfunded projects" in the production queue.
It's the same information as provided beneath the last item in the row.
More useful in my opinion would be the information about difference in PP needed to have the last item completely funded. This way you could faster see how long it'll need that production runs dry, if the last item is a big one.

- In the Topline you see your RP and PP. Cool would be if you'd see the actual Points, but also get the possible Points, as PP and RP take time to change, like this "145 / 245". Pretty self explainable that the first pos is the actual and the second the balanced, should be intuitive enough.

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Dilvish
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#176 Post by Dilvish »

Scara wrote:- I asked myself for what to do with the information "underfunded projects" in the production queue.
It's the same information as provided beneath the last item in the row.
It's not necessarily *just* that item, if your empire has been blockaded into multiple different resource groups.

But still, I agree with the main point, that the underfunded line there in the queue header (same for research queue) is pretty pointless, and probably amounts to clutter. (Perhaps it had some function in yesteryear before we added the 'wastedPP' warning icon at the top left of the main bar. )

Does anyone have a good theory on why it (the underfunded projects line in the research & production queue headers) would be useful and should not be removed?
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Vezzra
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#177 Post by Vezzra »

Dilvish wrote:Does anyone have a good theory on why it (the underfunded projects line in the research & production queue headers) would be useful and should not be removed?
Nothing comes to mind. On the contrary, I've also always wondered what that info should be good for....

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Dilvish
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#178 Post by Dilvish »

Vezzra wrote:
Dilvish wrote:Does anyone have a good theory on why it (the underfunded projects line in the research & production queue headers) would be useful and should not be removed?
Nothing comes to mind. On the contrary, I've also always wondered what that info should be good for....
Ok, Done.
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Scara
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#179 Post by Scara »

Scara wrote:Hi,
- In the Topline you see your RP and PP.
You know what I mean? The Headline always visible.
Population and Ships are there too.
For Population the suggested destination indicator might also be interesting.
On the planets or the object list you can see whether your population, industry or research is rising or in decline.
The idea was, having these parameter destinations summed up in the headline, to see the overall effects of focus changes directly.

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