Xenophobic trait issues

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Ophiuchus
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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#76 Post by Ophiuchus »

BlueAward wrote: Thu Oct 27, 2022 10:48 pm However I suppose I do not understand the jumps condition, particularly the second condition. It counts planets within 5 jumps from my planet, but also within 2 jumps if I explored them? Is not the second condition redundant? I guess I do not understand it
ah, never heard of that condition. stringtables DESC_EXPLORED_BY_EMPIRE '''that has not been explored by the %1% empire'''' indicates the name is fitting and the macro has a bug.

it would make more sense the other way round (affected by up to 2 jumps of unexplored systems and 5 jumps of explored systems). but this makes it also weird - it means as trith: do not stop a ship in a system where are foreigners. (although i think we changed exploration to happen on flyby also, so "never fly by a foreigner's planet")

For some species this might make sense (pretending the foreigners are not there), but for Trith it does not make any sense fluffwise.

Also I think the implementation was intended to resemble the map. So count a planet if it was (or maybe is) visible, not if it was explored.

How about making this about supply instead? Fluffwise that at least means that there are trith in that system. And trith could think of going a NO_SUPPLY route.

balance-wise: the malus is capped at bonus zero. For many (endless) foreign species planets it is 40% of current target population.
This seems very weird. Should not depend on target population (note this happens after self-sustaining bonus is added). Fluffwise population does make sense.
Also that it is based on target pop could explain observed fluctation and (maybe) unknown malus. If based on population there might be also fluctuation, but I imagine considerably less.


For starting planet current pop ~= target pop and has 24 pop (including the self-sustaining bonus 9pop).
One planet means -2 pop, two planets -3.5, at three planets -4.7 ... with 11 planets the bonus is mostly eaten up. With better growth techs, this happens earlier.

Clearing out a sector for trith is thematical (extinguish or evacuate the natives, late game they can return to their home planet).

So my suggestion: base it mostly on supply (where one has some agency) and on population (not sure if intial or current).
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Oberlus
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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#77 Post by Oberlus »

It shouldn't be explored, but "visible"/"detected".
And instead of at X jumps of explored, at X jumps of visible.

I guess the idea was to let the "planets that are highlighted to Trith thanks to their telepathy" also affect their population. So if it bothers Trith, Trith can see at least the "?" marking where the system is.


Maybe turn it into a linear distance buffer?

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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#78 Post by Ophiuchus »

Oberlus wrote: Fri Oct 28, 2022 6:42 am It shouldn't be explored, but "visible"/"detected".
And instead of at X jumps of explored, at X jumps of visible.

I guess the idea was to let the "planets that are highlighted to Trith thanks to their telepathy" also affect their population. So if it bothers Trith, Trith can see at least the "?" marking where the system is.
yes, that makes a lot of sense.

side-note: the malus may not depend on detection range/strength because of the prime technology directive.
Oberlus wrote: Fri Oct 28, 2022 6:42 am Maybe turn it into a linear distance buffer?
Not sure what that means.

We could also simply decrease the number of hops for both detection and harmful effects - at e.g. three hops it is not very likely that the home planet has a lot of issues.
And for placement of colonies one has agency,

Or scale the effect with hop distance; which has the downsides of make the focs script way more complicated - i think the effect calculation is already not understandable without a spreadsheet, so adding complexity there is not a UI problem.
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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#79 Post by Oberlus »

Ophiuchus wrote: Fri Oct 28, 2022 8:22 am
Oberlus wrote: Fri Oct 28, 2022 6:42 am Maybe turn it into a linear distance buffer?
Not sure what that means.
I mean, instead of hops distance, euclidean? map distance. I.e., Trith populations affected by foreign populations at less than XXX uu (for convenience, picking a value that coincides to one of the default zoom distances). Like with Isolation policy.
To me, that is simpler to understand and to estimate from visual inspection than hops distance, and it makes sense to me that telepathic effects do not travel through starlanes.
Ophiuchus wrote: Fri Oct 28, 2022 8:22 am Or scale the effect with hop distance; which has the downsides of make the focs script way more complicated - i think the effect calculation is already not understandable without a spreadsheet, so adding complexity there is not a UI problem.
I would take the opportunity to at least simplify that equation, to something that can be easily described in a Pedia page and easily understood.

Scaling the effect by hop distance is not that troublesome for that aim. See for example what I did for Xenophobic stability malus (frenzy/harassment effects, not among the simpler ones but manageable) and how it ended up in the Pedia page (IMO, relatively straightforward).
Scaling the effect by euclidean distance (if we choose that) is quite more awkward for visual estimations.

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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#80 Post by BlueAward »

Mostly for gaming reasons I would somewhat reduce effects from allied empires, at least from their imperial species. That is an uneasy alliance but alliance nonetheless... not remove completely but reduce somehow so you would hate it less to have your allies around

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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#81 Post by Ophiuchus »

BlueAward wrote: Fri Oct 28, 2022 4:57 pm Mostly for gaming reasons I would somewhat reduce effects from allied empires, at least from their imperial species. That is an uneasy alliance but alliance nonetheless... not remove completely but reduce somehow so you would hate it less to have your allies around
are you still talking about population effects?

besides this totally breaking the trith thematically... (the malus does not come from being afraid of others)

if not restricted to ally imperial species - simply gifting colonies to an ally making the severe malus go away (or be reduced) feels like cheating


borders are generally a problem for trith. one could establish a "neutral" exobot zone
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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#82 Post by Ophiuchus »

Oberlus wrote: Fri Oct 28, 2022 8:47 am Scaling the effect by hop distance is not that troublesome for that aim. See for example what I did for Xenophobic stability malus (frenzy/harassment effects, not among the simpler ones but manageable) and how it ended up in the Pedia page (IMO, relatively straightforward).
Scaling the effect by euclidean distance (if we choose that) is quite more awkward for visual estimations.
so I'd say lets do this
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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#83 Post by BlueAward »

Ophiuchus wrote: Fri Oct 28, 2022 7:03 pm
BlueAward wrote: Fri Oct 28, 2022 4:57 pm Mostly for gaming reasons I would somewhat reduce effects from allied empires, at least from their imperial species. That is an uneasy alliance but alliance nonetheless... not remove completely but reduce somehow so you would hate it less to have your allies around
are you still talking about population effects?

besides this totally breaking the trith thematically... (the malus does not come from being afraid of others)

if not restricted to ally imperial species - simply gifting colonies to an ally making the severe malus go away (or be reduced) feels like cheating


borders are generally a problem for trith. one could establish a "neutral" exobot zone
Yes, population. Thematically, they should be banned from making alliances I guess. Some other games have species that are in eternal war, which is considered big malus of course and balanced by concrete type of gameplay. Presumably you would not want to go that way, though

This would of course make them not possible to play in team games... and multiolayer people would dislike them even more. So yes I wanted to make them more pleasant in multiplayer where there are alliances, but I am not dying on that hill.

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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#84 Post by Oberlus »

Thematically, they are not good at interwinned alliances, but Trith can have friends as long as they are far away.

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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#85 Post by BlueAward »

wobbly wrote: Thu Oct 27, 2022 9:23 am
BlueAward wrote: Thu Oct 27, 2022 8:59 am I am complaining about the starting conditions though, and identified ancient guardians' hit as most immediately concerning
Can you do me a favour? Test with this copy of monster_guard.macros and see if it's any better?

https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/pull/4289/files
Something feels weird to me about probabilities in this game. It's like you get bunch of krakens or none at all, or bunch of juggernauts or none at all... or is it intended? But also when my krakens were maturing it seemed like suspiciously too often stuff would mature or spawn together on the same turn. Would need some more focused testing on that I guess with full visibility turned on. With those guardians it also felt like I am getting a bunch or none at all, but yeah guess need more testing woth full visibility

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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#86 Post by BlueAward »

Ophiuchus wrote: Fri Oct 28, 2022 6:29 am
BlueAward wrote: Thu Oct 27, 2022 10:48 pm However I suppose I do not understand the jumps condition, particularly the second condition. It counts planets within 5 jumps from my planet, but also within 2 jumps if I explored them? Is not the second condition redundant? I guess I do not understand it
ah, never heard of that condition. stringtables DESC_EXPLORED_BY_EMPIRE '''that has not been explored by the %1% empire'''' indicates the name is fitting and the macro has a bug.
Allright it seems it works in this way: it counts planets up to 5 hops away, but only if they are 2 hops or closer to an explored system. I would have a native species 3 hops away from my home system AND EVEN VISIBLE ON RADAR but not affecting my population. I scouted a system next to mine, 2 hops away from those natives... and bam, they started affecting my max pop... (note that stability was affected from the start)

(I suppose it also evidences weirdness about doing it in hop distance rather than euclidean, I can have something close in space but far in hop distance, I remember somebody once was shocked they can see other empire's homeworld from the get go but it was far enough in terms of hops)

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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#87 Post by Ophiuchus »

BlueAward wrote: Sat Oct 29, 2022 9:06 am Allright it seems it works in this way: it counts planets up to 5 hops away, but only if they are 2 hops or closer to an explored system.
yes, that makes sense.

still for trith as said, we should get rid of depending on exploration.

the main question is either going understandable/predictable numbers in effects (hop distance) or more intuitive on map level (euclidean distance).

i see freeorion mostly like a board game, so i am for clearer numbers (hop distance).
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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#88 Post by BlueAward »

BlueAward wrote: Sat Oct 29, 2022 7:26 am
wobbly wrote: Thu Oct 27, 2022 9:23 am
BlueAward wrote: Thu Oct 27, 2022 8:59 am I am complaining about the starting conditions though, and identified ancient guardians' hit as most immediately concerning
Can you do me a favour? Test with this copy of monster_guard.macros and see if it's any better?

https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/pull/4289/files
Something feels weird to me about probabilities in this game. It's like you get bunch of krakens or none at all, or bunch of juggernauts or none at all... or is it intended? But also when my krakens were maturing it seemed like suspiciously too often stuff would mature or spawn together on the same turn. Would need some more focused testing on that I guess with full visibility turned on. With those guardians it also felt like I am getting a bunch or none at all, but yeah guess need more testing woth full visibility
I've run some huuuge universe generations and I guess it may just be hard to find suitable planets for monster nests if they're supposed to be in some minimal distance from capitals, that's why it felt weird not to see some type of nest at all

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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#89 Post by wobbly »

Oberlus wrote: Wed Oct 26, 2022 6:13 pm
BlueAward wrote: Wed Oct 26, 2022 6:04 pm Or I would get slightly less salty too if xenophobes or at least trith got cheaper bombardment tech(s)
That sounds OK. In Racial Purity better? I think it makes little sense to get cheaper bombardment when you capture a xenophobic species.
Could be added into terror suppression policy

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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#90 Post by LienRag »

wobbly wrote: Sat Oct 29, 2022 6:18 pm Could be added into terror suppression policy
Isn't Terror Suppression unlocked by Bombardment ?
Then reducing the cost of Bombardment when Terror Suppression is adopted isn't really useful...

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