Thoughts after my first play in several years

For what's not in 'Top Priority Game Design'. Post your ideas, visions, suggestions for the game, rules, modifications, etc.

Moderator: Oberlus

Message
Author
marhawkman
Large Juggernaut
Posts: 938
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2006 9:34 pm
Location: GA

Re: Thoughts after my first play in several years

#16 Post by marhawkman »

In 4857? I finally got it installed.

anyways, wow is it different.... But something confuses me. I keep settling planets only to have them show me a max population of 5 or less. Why is that?
Computer programming is fun.

User avatar
eleazar
Design & Graphics Lead Emeritus
Posts: 3858
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 7:09 pm
Location: USA — midwest

Re: Thoughts after my first play in several years

#17 Post by eleazar »

Population effects were shifted down so the max is around 25 instead of 100.
Though the population stuff is in the middle of being redone, so there are oddities.

marhawkman
Large Juggernaut
Posts: 938
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2006 9:34 pm
Location: GA

Re: Thoughts after my first play in several years

#18 Post by marhawkman »

And yet I still see planets with a value of 60+.. but those are only planets with Cultural Archives, I think...

Another oddity is that some planetary specials that previously did not affect population now have max pop penalties that are pretty harsh.

Let's see....

Apidiske: pop 67(Abaddonni), sources: Good enviroment +2, Subterranean bonus +2, Cultural Archives +15, Unknown +48

Minkowski I: pop 62(Ugmorrs), GE +2, Very Slow Rotation -3, CA +15, UNKNOWN +48

Minkowski III: pop 6(Silexian), GE +4, S +2

Typhon II: pop 64(Ugmorrs), (can't see why)

Taylor I: pop 3(Kobuntura), GE +6, Solid core -3

Navi III(my HW): pop 72(Cray), GE +6, Ambient Superconductors +3, CA +15, UNKNOWN +48

Albireo I: pop 64(Abaddonni), GE +2, S +2, SC -3, CA +15, UNKNOWN +48

Albireo II: pop 3(Cray), AS +3 (yeah it has 0 without the special)

Menkar II: pop 3(Cray), GE +6, VSR -3

Faraday III: pop .10(Cray), Poor environment +0, environmental encapsulation +0.10

Faraday V: special mention, I can't colonize it, it doesn't even display a name. It does however dislay a special called "Caretaker's Fruit", even though it's uninhabited it shows as having a Cultural archives on the planet.

Bode II: pop 65(Ugmorrs), GE +2, CA +15, UNKNOWN +48
Computer programming is fun.

User avatar
Bigjoe5
Designer and Programmer
Posts: 2058
Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2007 6:33 pm
Location: Orion

Re: Thoughts after my first play in several years

#19 Post by Bigjoe5 »

There is some example scripting in buildings.txt which boosts population on certain planets for no other reason than to demonstrate the use of statistics.
Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

Zireael
Space Dragon
Posts: 429
Joined: Mon Aug 15, 2011 5:33 pm

Re: Thoughts after my first play in several years

#20 Post by Zireael »

Bigjoe5 wrote:There is some example scripting in buildings.txt which boosts population on certain planets for no other reason than to demonstrate the use of statistics.
Why is that?

User avatar
Bigjoe5
Designer and Programmer
Posts: 2058
Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2007 6:33 pm
Location: Orion

Re: Thoughts after my first play in several years

#21 Post by Bigjoe5 »

Zireael wrote:
Bigjoe5 wrote:There is some example scripting in buildings.txt which boosts population on certain planets for no other reason than to demonstrate the use of statistics.
Why is that?
Because the syntax for scripting isn't always self explanatory, so whenever Geoff adds/fixes something, he usually puts an example in one of the text files where its effect will be obvious. Those examples can probably be removed whenever at this point.
Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

User avatar
eleazar
Design & Graphics Lead Emeritus
Posts: 3858
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 7:09 pm
Location: USA — midwest

Re: Thoughts after my first play in several years

#22 Post by eleazar »

Bigjoe5 wrote:Because the syntax for scripting isn't always self explanatory, so whenever Geoff adds/fixes something, he usually puts an example in one of the text files where its effect will be obvious. Those examples can probably be removed whenever at this point.
Maybe we should "implement" trade/influence simply to have something useless to modify with test scripts.

marhawkman
Large Juggernaut
Posts: 938
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2006 9:34 pm
Location: GA

Re: Thoughts after my first play in several years

#23 Post by marhawkman »

Any idea why some planets have a base value of 0? I could understand that for Hostile planets but these aren't hostile.

I've noted a few more odd things in this version.

all my Planets seem to get a stealth bonus of +100 for EACH cultural archives I control.

AI planets(not magnate civilizations) get a +5000 stealth for reasons I don't understand. Also this ridiculously high stealth boost makes it so I can't subjugate their worlds. Yeah, even with a ship in system it shows as a planet I don't have sensor seadings of(greyed out or whatever you call it).

I like how planetary specials sometimes change the planet pictures, But.. The impact picture is kinda dumb.

The current game i'm playing ALL planets I control have heavy cloud cover. I colonize/subjugate planets without it and the special is added to my planet afterwards.

I like the graphical effect for planets with heavy cloud cover though. :D
Computer programming is fun.

User avatar
Bigjoe5
Designer and Programmer
Posts: 2058
Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2007 6:33 pm
Location: Orion

Re: Thoughts after my first play in several years

#24 Post by Bigjoe5 »

marhawkman wrote:I like how planetary specials sometimes change the planet pictures, But.. The impact picture is kinda dumb.
Yeah, that one was also there for testing. I really don't think we need it anymore either.
marhawkman wrote:The current game i'm playing ALL planets I control have heavy cloud cover. I colonize/subjugate planets without it and the special is added to my planet afterwards.

I like the graphical effect for planets with heavy cloud cover though. :D
That would be because you've researched EM Damper. Makes sense right?

...yeah, it's possible that there may need to be different stealth techs for ships and planets, as its not necessarily easy to figure out something that makes sense for both... Also, the idea of having stealthy ships and stealthy planets is potentially very different gameplay-wise as well, though I doubt anyone would want to research planetary stealth without researching ship stealth as well. The progression of stealth techs, or at least their concepts, probably need to be rethought.
Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

marhawkman
Large Juggernaut
Posts: 938
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2006 9:34 pm
Location: GA

Re: Thoughts after my first play in several years

#25 Post by marhawkman »

I think the current stealth works ok. The stealth special could use a better description though.

Anyways... any idea why the AI planets have such ridiculous stealth meters?

Oh, another thing I noticed is that in some cases star colors are more important when choosing planets than the sizes or types of planets. Especially yellow stars(+6) and white(+8?). The bonuses apply to asteroids and gas giants too! (EDIT: okay that's because I was playing a phototrophic race)

EDIT:
I looked around in some of the data files.
species:
Tags:
Organic: only organic races benefit from certain techs.
Stylish: does this do anything?
Phototrophic: so, these are plant based races that get pop bonuses based on the sunlight they get from stars?
Telepathic: see stylish
Robotic: certain specials benefit robotic races
Lithic: see stylish
self sufficient: see Lithic


EP:
[[planettype_{standard/broad/narrow}_EP]]
so that code looks things up in the Macro table?
will the game complain if I define new entries in the Macros section?
what happens if a race has gas giant as their preferred planet type?

Universe tables:
what happens if I add a universe age?
is it actually possible for "nostar" to have planets? the - values are extreme.
Computer programming is fun.

User avatar
eleazar
Design & Graphics Lead Emeritus
Posts: 3858
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 7:09 pm
Location: USA — midwest

Re: Thoughts after my first play in several years

#26 Post by eleazar »

marhawkman wrote:I think the current stealth works ok. The stealth special could use a better description though.

Anyways... any idea why the AI planets have such ridiculous stealth meters?

Oh, another thing I noticed is that in some cases star colors are more important when choosing planets than the sizes or types of planets. Especially yellow stars(+6) and white(+8?). The bonuses apply to asteroids and gas giants too! (EDIT: okay that's because I was playing a phototrophic race)

EDIT:
I looked around in some of the data files.
species:
Tags:
Organic: only organic races benefit from certain techs.
Stylish: does this do anything?
Phototrophic: so, these are plant based races that get pop bonuses based on the sunlight they get from stars?
Telepathic: see stylish
Robotic: certain specials benefit robotic races
Lithic: see stylish
self sufficient: see Lithic
See the last page or two of these threads to see what's intended and what's partially implemented:
http://freeorion.org/forum/viewtopic.ph ... &start=120
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=6528

marhawkman wrote:EP:
[[planettype_{standard/broad/narrow}_EP]]
so that code looks things up in the Macro table?
will the game complain if I define new entries in the Macros section?
You can make new macros.
marhawkman wrote:what happens if a race has gas giant as their preferred planet type?
It used to sorta work, but i think there are some oddities.
marhawkman wrote:is it actually possible for "nostar" to have planets? the - values are extreme.
Theoretically possible, depending on the values, and how broken the part of universe generation that reads them happens to be.

marhawkman
Large Juggernaut
Posts: 938
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2006 9:34 pm
Location: GA

Re: Thoughts after my first play in several years

#27 Post by marhawkman »

I looked to see what settings were most likely to spawn planets in "nostar" systems.... young with lots of planets. the result was around 4 gas giants in the entire galaxy.

I also monkeyed with the settings for spawing "planetoids" at black holes. IIRC Planetoids are tiny planets, so I set thier entry on black holes to +200 instead of the current -200. The result? No tiny planets, but a drastically increased spawn rate for objects obiting black holes.
Computer programming is fun.

User avatar
eleazar
Design & Graphics Lead Emeritus
Posts: 3858
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 7:09 pm
Location: USA — midwest

Re: Thoughts after my first play in several years

#28 Post by eleazar »

marhawkman wrote:I looked to see what settings were most likely to spawn planets in "nostar" systems.... young with lots of planets. the result was around 4 gas giants in the entire galaxy.

I also monkeyed with the settings for spawing "planetoids" at black holes. IIRC Planetoids are tiny planets, so I set thier entry on black holes to +200 instead of the current -200. The result? No tiny planets, but a drastically increased spawn rate for objects obiting black holes.
The universe generation tables are broken in many complicated ways:
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=6622

Zireael
Space Dragon
Posts: 429
Joined: Mon Aug 15, 2011 5:33 pm

Re: Thoughts after my first play in several years

#29 Post by Zireael »

eleazar wrote:
Bigjoe5 wrote:Because the syntax for scripting isn't always self explanatory, so whenever Geoff adds/fixes something, he usually puts an example in one of the text files where its effect will be obvious. Those examples can probably be removed whenever at this point.
Maybe we should "implement" trade/influence simply to have something useless to modify with test scripts.
Seconded.
marhawkman wrote:
The current game i'm playing ALL planets I control have heavy cloud cover. I colonize/subjugate planets without it and the special is added to my planet afterwards.

I like the graphical effect for planets with heavy cloud cover though. :D
That would be because you've researched EM Damper. Makes sense right?
No, it doesn't, and I was going to report that, but I see marhawkman was faster.

marhawkman
Large Juggernaut
Posts: 938
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2006 9:34 pm
Location: GA

Re: Thoughts after my first play in several years

#30 Post by marhawkman »

so is there any word on why AI HWs have such idiotically high stealth values?
Computer programming is fun.

Post Reply