v0.4.3 Release Preparations

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MatGB
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Re: v0.4.3 Release Preparations

#31 Post by MatGB »

I was going to report Ecology not working for me either (RC1, Win7) having now got there in RC1, it hasn't been working for the last few weeks test builds but I only really noticed it when I needed the boost. No idea about lighthouses, don't use them.
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Vezzra
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Re: v0.4.3 Release Preparations

#32 Post by Vezzra »

MatGB wrote:I was going to report Ecology not working for me either (RC1, Win7) having now got there in RC1, it hasn't been working for the last few weeks test builds but I only really noticed it when I needed the boost.
Hopefully fixed, see here.

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Dilvish
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Re: v0.4.3 Release Preparations

#33 Post by Dilvish »

ok that AI fix is in. One other bug I just noticed is that our max population projection (relied up for Colony button display and for auto-colony decisions) has a couple problems. I don't readily find a fix for it so I started a separate thread on it, so as to not overly clutter up this one.
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Dilvish
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Re: v0.4.3 Release Preparations

#34 Post by Dilvish »

The population projections issue is now fully fixed (I believe).
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eleazar
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Re: v0.4.3 Release Preparations

#35 Post by eleazar »

I'll be on vacation (away from my computer) this weekend, and most of next week.
Don't hold up anything for me.

MiniMe
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Re: v0.4.3 Release Preparations

#36 Post by MiniMe »

Found a tiny bug:
If there is an outpost ship/base idling in a system with a "Philosopher" special, the colonies in that system do not get the research bonus.
Havent been able to test if this also is the case if there is a colony ship/base.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: v0.4.3 Release Preparations

#37 Post by Geoff the Medio »

MiniMe wrote:If there is an outpost ship/base idling in a system with a "Philosopher" special, the colonies in that system do not get the research bonus.
Does it actually affect research progress between turns, or is it just a client-side UI display issue?

Only guess I have is that automatically choosing colony ships isn't inhibiting object change signals when temporarily setting and unsetting planet ownership, which is leading to sidepanel updates that reflect the temporary settings.

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Dilvish
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Re: v0.4.3 Release Preparations

#38 Post by Dilvish »

Geoff the Medio wrote:
MiniMe wrote:If there is an outpost ship/base idling in a system with a "Philosopher" special, the colonies in that system do not get the research bonus.
Does it actually affect research progress between turns, or is it just a client-side UI display issue?

Only guess I have is that automatically choosing colony ships isn't inhibiting object change signals when temporarily setting and unsetting planet ownership, which is leading to sidepanel updates that reflect the temporary settings.
Looking for any other instances of SetSpecies being used, I found another spot where a population projections-type process was being done, by the chain of MapWnd::UpdateMeterEstimates methods. It seems this may have been done as part of an old way of getting these projections available; the comments were

Code: Select all

    // add this player ownership to all planets in the objects_vec that aren't
    // currently colonized.  this way, any effects the player knows about that
    // would act on those planets if the player colonized them include those
    // planets in their scope.  This lets effects from techs the player knows
    // alter the max population of planet that is displayed to the player, even
    // if those effects have a condition that causes them to only act on
    // planets the player owns (so as to not improve enemy planets if a player
    // reseraches a tech that should only benefit him/herself)
At the end of the routine it resets the ownership and species on the planets but does not appear to update the meters after that.

I just ran some tests, and yes, this is the code that was causing the cited trouble with Philosopher's planet. The updating portion is still needed to be responsive to Focus changes, for example, but the species and owner setting part is not needed, because for a long while now that's all been handled via the other code we just got done fixing up. (I've tested both the need to update here for Focus and the lack of need to update here for pop projections.) Cleaning this up fixes the Philosopher planet problem. Attached is a patch showing the changes. Since Geoff appears to be offline right now, and Vezzra's deadline for RC2 is just a few minutes off, I'm going to go ahead and commit.
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[The extension patch has been deactivated and can no longer be displayed.]

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Afdal
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Re: v0.4.3 Release Preparations

#39 Post by Afdal »

I hope this is the right place for release candidate 2 feedback. I played a game the other night with another person and noted a few things.

While Planetary Ecology is back to working again, one thing I find interesting is that it does not work on ships on the same turn that they're produced; you have to wait one more turn for them to benefit from the speed bonus. If you hover over Starlane Speed for the newly-produced ship it says it has the +20.0 speed bonus, except there's also -20.0 speed bonus due to Unknown that cancels it out. This goes away the next turn but it can mess with plans for getting your front-line ships out quickly. Is this intentional?

System defense mines attack allied teammates. I once blew up an entire fleet by accident my teammate was making on the very turn they finished production because we both owned planets in the same system and it was hilarious.

This isn't real specific to the release candidate but is there any reason to still have separate-level weaponry icons in Ship Design? It's just a bit tedious to have to replace your ship designs every time you research the next level in a weapon and it seems pretty pointless when the cost and turn limit for a given weapon type doesn't change. Couldn't it be made to automatically replace the weaker weapons on old designs? It replaces the lower-level weapons from available selection already anyway.

Finally I've noticed this for a while now (maybe since 0.4.2 official build?) but sometimes you'll queue up production for a ship and have it end up taking one more turn to produce than denoted in spite of you having more than enough production points for a full bar of progress each turn. This is due to the ship increasing its production point price while you're building it. Apparently this is simulating some sort of inflation? This ends up making the expected number of turns to completion somewhat unreliable. And maybe the problem with inflation in general is that the production point gain doesn't increase with it--there is a flat static limit to any form of production that you'll eventually reach. I'm assuming this is to encourage players to expand but it isn't real obvious.

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MatGB
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Re: v0.4.3 Release Preparations

#40 Post by MatGB »

Afdal wrote: While Planetary Ecology is back to working again, one thing I find interesting is that it does not work on ships on the same turn that they're produced; you have to wait one more turn for them to benefit from the speed bonus. If you hover over Starlane Speed for the newly-produced ship it says it has the +20.0 speed bonus, except there's also -20.0 speed bonus due to Unknown that cancels it out. This goes away the next turn but it can mess with plans for getting your front-line ships out quickly. Is this intentional?
I'm getting this as well, and it's not just newly produced ships, sometimes ships that arrive back into range don't get it while others do, there doesn't appear to be a solid pattern and I can't replicate it regularly.
This isn't real specific to the release candidate but is there any reason to still have separate-level weaponry icons in Ship Design? It's just a bit tedious to have to replace your ship designs every time you research the next level in a weapon and it seems pretty pointless when the cost and turn limit for a given weapon type doesn't change. Couldn't it be made to automatically replace the weaker weapons on old designs? It replaces the lower-level weapons from available selection already anyway.
That's being discussed in a few threads for the best way of handling it, and yeah, it is annoying, but upgrades is in the current design spec on the wiki.
Finally I've noticed this for a while now (maybe since 0.4.2 official build?) but sometimes you'll queue up production for a ship and have it end up taking one more turn to produce than denoted in spite of you having more than enough production points for a full bar of progress each turn. This is due to the ship increasing its production point price while you're building it. Apparently this is simulating some sort of inflation? This ends up making the expected number of turns to completion somewhat unreliable. And maybe the problem with inflation in general is that the production point gain doesn't increase with it--there is a flat static limit to any form of production that you'll eventually reach. I'm assuming this is to encourage players to expand but it isn't real obvious.
It's the Fleet Upkeep changes, for some reason the change to production cost is beign applied after the actual production is so new ships are made, the costs for queued ships is changed, but the new required amount is retroactively applied to the turn being calculated.

Very annoying, especially on repeating orders as the amount made per turn reduces annoyingly over time.

I like the idea of the fleet upkeep rules but the way the cost changes are being applied is increasingly frustrating.
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: v0.4.3 Release Preparations

#41 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Afdal wrote:[Infrastructure Ecology] does not work on ships on the same turn that they're produced...
The effect has a condition that requires the target to have speed greater than 1 (so that immobile ships don't get made mobile by the effect), but objects (including ships) are initially created by the production system with meters all set to 0. The effects application after production sets the meter to greater than 0, but what effects will act on what objects is determined before any of the effects act, so before effects application happens, the ship's speed meter is 0, and the tech effect doesn't get to act on that object on the turn it's created.
...there is a flat static limit to any form of production that you'll eventually reach. I'm assuming this is to encourage players to expand...
The main point is to reduce the number of ships that can be produced.

That and most of your other points are general design issues, and not really release candidate bugs. But thanks for the comments.

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Re: v0.4.3 Release Preparations

#42 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Since there haven't been any RC-relevant issues noted, I'm expecting to declare RC2 to be the actual v0.4.3 release later today...

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Re: v0.4.3 Release Preparations

#43 Post by yandonman »

I would 2nd that. I've played a number of games and have only had feedback (posted in other threads) that is beyond 0.4.3. So "ship it!" :)
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Re: v0.4.3 Release Preparations

#44 Post by Dilvish »

Afdal wrote:System defense mines attack allied teammates. I once blew up an entire fleet by accident my teammate was making on the very turn they finished production because we both owned planets in the same system and it was hilarious.
makes sense; I think that might have been mentioned last time I worked on the mines but I was focused on other things at the time. I wont be able to work on it for almost another couple weeks, but if no one else gets around to it I´ll try to look at it then.
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MatGB
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Re: v0.4.3 Release Preparations

#45 Post by MatGB »

Been thinking re mines, might it be possible/better to have them do a %age structure damage each turn instead of a set amount? ATM smaller ship hulls die horribly whereas larger hulls don't even notice them most of the time, especially if they're in supply range and you've got ADC.

For the most part mines just mean small hulls become obsolete completely in the later game, which prevents some fleet strategies &c, whereas %age structure would mean big ships would fear them a bit and small ships would still survive them (if they survive the battle relatively intact).
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