Issues in MP games

[Lakotavar]

We just finished another MP session and we are now in turn 350. Even with quite some changes every turn the game seems to be stable which is really nice.

I was finally able to point at the auto-build issue where upgrades are not included to the queue. It seems the auto-include stops working if not all capacities are distributed. I am sure about it because when I manually distributed the worker to a farm the auto-build started to include an upgrade in the next turn and it also scraped some buildings so basically worked as usually.
The worker was not distributed because there was no building left where it could be assigned to (they didn't need more food or energy). The correct way to get out of this situation would have been to build a university or a database but it didn't.

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Could you maybe add the option to sort colonies by alphabet instead of just having a list in the order of colonizations? With 30+ colonies it would be much easier to find a certain colony by name.

Also when I made a membership treaty with a minor civ couble clicking the info opened the diplomacy screen which might be formally correct but I don't have to do anything there. It would be much more helpful if I would be moved to the system's page where I need to do stuff then. Finding it on the map is not necessarily easy and the systems list is not sorted.

We tried to colonize a system during the same turn and my friend got the system in both attempts. He terraformed the planets before if that matters.

[Iceman]

The Fed research is a bit too easy (I regret being honest already). I enjoy it but my friend has similar gaming skills and he was far behind after a while. And a low research sets you back in every aspect of the game. I would say research could be fine-tuned (Fed reduced and maybe others increased or the other empires should maybe have their strengths increased).

The Elite Academia bonus (+20% EW) might be a bit high, yes. But Romulans (your friend) have the Ministry of Science, which is +10% EW.
To notice that the Feds and Roms (and the Dom too) have their Simulator only at Energy 6, while the Cards and Klings at Computers 5, that is, way later - for balance reasons.
Could it be that you had a lot more colonies than your friend, and thus more labs?
To notice that Intel is not yet implemented, so stealing tech and sabotaging labs is not a thing yet.
But MP games are a good way to test balance, yes, and your feedback is appreciated. In the games you are going to play next, can you please keep an eye on this, maybe with other empires as well?

However I think it would be a great feature to share research data in an Alliance. That would again be something that gives you the co-op feeling when sharing the empire's "talents". It's a game but let's say realistically they could send research data at any time I guess. One could say in an Alliance a certain fraction of research points are shared in both directions. Generally I like when game-decisions have an impact especially in MP.

Makes sense, yes, especially because we already have something like that for Membership treaties.

Maybe we should force relations to their "proper" (minimum) values upon signing treaties At least it would make it look a bit more legit

I really don't know about this one.. because as we both said it's a game that should be fun and for me that usually means it needs to have a proper difficulty and complexity level. Additionally in a MP/co-op I want to experience the interactions between real players soon enough and there should not be too many obstacles. So maybe a reduced minimum and then the indication on the diplomacy screen actually makes more sense.

I think you misunderstood me. I wasn't saying (in the quoted sentence) that we should enforce minimum levels for treaties (I alluded to that earlier in the post though). I was saying that maybe we should make it so that when an alliance is signed (with no restrictions, like currently), the relations would be automatically increased to their minimum required level, so as to not be strange 2 human players being allied and their relations being/staying at Neutral - like you mentioned in your post. So, after signing an alliance, you both would instantly go to Worshipful relations with each other.
Both are weird situations, yes, it's just a matter of which one is less weird

OK, so actually I had something in mind but I wanted to see if that is of interest at all before I share it.
I thought that similarly to the diplomats that show up in parallel to the proper timeline (though Star Trek eras and Technology levels) the scripted events could also appear in that manner. For example when we are in the Kirk era we could say "An Alien approached Sol and started sending unknown signals directed to the ocean - structures are shutdown for one turn). Or if we have the Picard era maybe "Picard discovered ancient relicts - research points added." I might have better ideas but just to get an impression of what I meant.

I think that this is doable right now, though not moddable - it would have to be hardcoded at this point.
But would there be any such events for empires other than the Federation?

[Lakotavar]

Since I couldn't upload more than 3 attachments here's parts two.

We started war against the Cardassians and my friend used troop transporters to conquer one system. It turns out that the Cards are very much afraid to die from hunger it seems

Card_buildings.jpg (440.08 KiB) Viewed 652 times

And finally this might have been changed now with the newest version but I saw some ships of the Roms (friend) when cloaked but most of them had the question mark.

Rom_partially_visible.jpg (816.61 KiB) Viewed 652 times

[Lakotavar]

The Elite Academia bonus (+20% EW) might be a bit high, yes. But Romulans (your friend) have the Ministry of Science, which is +10% EW.
To notice that the Feds and Roms (and the Dom too) have their Simulator only at Energy 6, while the Cards and Klings at Computers 5, that is, way later - for balance reasons.
Could it be that you had a lot more colonies than your friend, and thus more labs?
To notice that Intel is not yet implemented, so stealing tech and sabotaging labs is not a thing yet.
But MP games are a good way to tet balance, yes, and your feedback is appreciated. In the games you are going to play next, can you please keep an eye on this, maybe with other empires as well?

Yes, I had more colonies and also more minor civs that gave quite strong bonuses to research. Here is the last savegame.

SP Federation Medium Irregular 350.sav

(1.19 MiB) Downloaded 15 times

I think you misunderstood me. I wasn't saying (in the quoted sentence) that we should enforce minimum levels for treaties (I alluded to that earlier in the post though). I was saying that maybe we should make it so that when an alliance is signed (with no restrictions, like currently), the relations would be automatically increased to their minimum required level, so as to not be strange 2 human players being allied and their relations being/staying at Neutral - like you mentioned in your post. So, after signing an alliance, you both would instantly go to Worshipful relations with each other.
Both are weird situations, yes, it's just a matter of which one is less weird

Ah.. yes, sorry. Adjusting the relationship level would make sense.. I mean more than having a decoupled indication without any meaning.

I think that this is doable right now, though not moddable - it would have to be hardcoded at this point.
But would there be any such events for empires other than the Federation?

Mhh you got me
But actually I think this is a question of proper Star Trek research on memory alpha or so but I can see it's a lot of work and that's why I was hesitant in the first place.
Maybe the general random events could occur a bit more often in a first attempt and of course both positive and negative. It's nice to see something special every now and then.

[Iceman]

We just finished another MP session and we are now in turn 350. Even with quite some changes every turn the game seems to be stable which is really nice.

What galaxy size were you playing in this game?

I was finally able to point at the auto-build issue where upgrades are not included to the queue. It seems the auto-include stops working if not all capacities are distributed.

You are absolutely correct. There were other restrictions in this (bypassing PF upgrades), but they were causing other issues and I commented them out and left this one. The intention was to address the AI building the upgrades while the colony was still growing, which caused a lot of unemployment - especially when playing with Production Facilities set to Best.

and it also scraped some buildings so basically worked as usually.

Hmm? Was this also related to population in the labor pool? Which buildings did it scrap?

The worker was not distributed because there was no building left where it could be assigned to (they didn't need more food or energy).

Yes, and food surplus was already maxed.

The correct way to get out of this situation would have been to build a university or a database but it didn't.

The colony already has the max amount of industry and research PFs determined by output focus. That code needs to be changed to calculate PF amounts dynamically instead of being static. It's in the ToDo list.

Could you maybe add the option to sort colonies by alphabet instead of just having a list in the order of colonizations? With 30+ colonies it would be much easier to find a certain colony by name.

I'll add this to the issue tracker.

Also when I made a membership treaty with a minor civ couble clicking the info opened the diplomacy screen which might be formally correct but I don't have to do anything there.

You might want to recall your envoy, if you have one. But... see below.

It would be much more helpful if I would be moved to the system's page where I need to do stuff then. Finding it on the map is not necessarily easy and the systems list is not sorted.

Isn't there usually another SitRep after this one (empty build queue in this system?) that allows you to go to the colony screen? Which would make both SitReps do the same. BTW, double-clicking on this one not only opens the colony screen, but it also centers the galaxy map on the system - so if you use F1 from the colony screen, the map will already be centered there.

We tried to colonize a system during the same turn and my friend got the system in both attempts. He terraformed the planets before if that matters.

When a fleet is terraforming, it will lay a claim on the system for that turn (you can see the claim by the sector's color). It's possible that if you both set the order on the turn right after he finished terraforming, he still had the claim, and so got to colonize the system.
If there are no claims, the factors that decide who gets to colonize are, off the top of my head, firepower, crew capacity, and maybe RNG (can't recall).

[Iceman]

We started war against the Cardassians and my friend used troop transporters to conquer one system. It turns out that the Cards are very much afraid to die from hunger it seems

Hehe, did both of you assault the system in the same turn? I've seen this before, and I think it is related to parallelization; I assume you are still using the previous release? It probably doesn't happen with the latest one.

And finally this might have been changed now with the newest version but I saw some ships of the Roms (friend) when cloaked but most of them had the question mark.

Yes, it shouldn't happen with the new one.

If you have savegames for both of these issues (for the 1st one, right before the assault that caused this issue), if you could load them in MP with the new version and test them, it'd be great.
It's ok to load savegames from the previous version with the new one, there were no savegame breaking changes. The old version should actually be scrapped, because of the parallelization issues!

[Lakotavar]

What galaxy size were you playing in this game?

We decided to finish the ongoing game despite the new release so it's still the medium map. We both feel like playing another MP game though and that be a huge map for the ultimate experience and test We both hope the CE will be implemented soon

Hmm? Was this also related to population in the labor pool? Which buildings did it scrap?

It scrapped 5 power plants after manually assigning the worker to a farm.

I'll add this to the issue tracker.

Thanks!

You might want to recall your envoy, if you have one. But... see below.

True.

Isn't there usually another SitRep after this one (empty build queue in this system?) that allows you to go to the colony screen? Which would make both SitReps do the same. BTW, double-clicking on this one not only opens the colony screen, but it also centers the galaxy map on the system - so if you use F1 from the colony screen, the map will already be centered there.

Most likely and I must have been blind. Then it's all perfect

When a fleet is terraforming, it will lay a claim on the system for that turn (you can see the claim by the sector's color). It's possible that if you both set the order on the turn right after he finished terraforming, he still had the claim, and so got to colonize the system.
If there are no claims, the factors that decide who gets to colonize are, off the top of my head, firepower, crew capacity, and maybe RNG (can't recall).

Interesting insights.. seems to be darn complex behind the surface.

[Lakotavar]

Hehe, did both of you assault the system in the same turn? iIve seen this before, and I think it is related to parallelization; I assume you are still using the previous release? It probably doesn't happen with the latest one.

No, it was only my friend playing the Roms in that case.
BTW do you know how he could estimate better how many troop transporters he needs for the most efficient attack? Also he lost quite some transporters per system and he is not sure why.

If you have savegames for both of these issues (for the 1st one, right before the assault that caused this issue), if you could load them in MP with the new version and test them, it'd be great.
It's ok to load savegames from the previous version with the new one, there were no savegame breaking changes. The old version should actually be scrapped, because of the parallelization issues!

I don't, sorry, but in the savegame I attached to the other post he is sitting at the next Card colony with his fleet so maybe there will be the same situation.

[Iceman]

We both feel like playing another MP game though and that be a huge map for the ultimate experience and test

I'll try to release a new patch asap, with some of the changes we discussed.

We both hope the CE will be implemented soon

Yeah, Misfire is working on it.

It scrapped 5 power plants after manually assigning the worker to a farm.

Yes, the AI scrapped the unused PFs because it will upgrade energy PFs, and this reduces upgrade time (less facilities).

When a fleet is terraforming, it will lay a claim on the system for that turn (you can see the claim by the sector's color). It's possible that if you both set the order on the turn right after he finished terraforming, he still had the claim, and so got to colonize the system.
If there are no claims, the factors that decide who gets to colonize are, off the top of my head, firepower, crew capacity, and maybe RNG (can't recall).

Interesting insights.. seems to be darn complex behind the surface.

Yes. This particular part took me ages to code, trying to antecipate every issue that might arise. I tested it some in hotseat mode, but MP is the real test.

[Iceman]

BTW do you know how he could estimate better how many troop transporters he needs for the most efficient attack? Also he lost quite some transporters per system and he is not sure why.

The combat rating of each troop transport is its crew modified by tech level and the race's combat strength. You should have at least ~1.5x the defender's combat power, but ~3x should yield less casualties to your troops.
When the "troops" of a TT are all killed, the TT is destroyed- that's to avoid being able to conquer the entire galaxy with a few TTs. Notice that the defender has the advantage, they'll shoot first, and they may have buildings that either increase combat strength, or protect troops (Bunker Network).
I can give you more details later if you wish.

[Iceman]

AFAICT the code says that every turn you should get updated scan data from Allied civs, and scan data and fuel range extension from Affiliated and Allied civs.
I've now made it so that on signing a Mutual Defense or an Alliance, both civs get each other's map data; for Membership, Affiliation (it shouldn't be the same as in an alliance I think), Non-Aggression and Open Borders I kept it how it was before, owned or claimed sectors only. Needs to be tested.
The PF upgrade issue might also be "fixed", needs testing.

[Lakotavar]

Thank you very much for including the discussed changes Obviously it is very motivating to help if feedback is really appreciated and considered.

We have some more conquering in the ongoing medium map MP game but I am looking forward to see the changes and playing the huge map.
I don't know how useful my feedback is now for the current game with the old release but I would still mention if there is something that feels like a really new issue. Even though sometimes it might be just a different view on things which is totally fine

Thanks for the work on the CE, Misfire. I saw it in the test version and I think it will turn out really nice!

[Iceman]

I didn't have the time to add/fix anything else, I wanted to release the patch asap because I thought you guys were going to start a new game this weekend - and I was away the past day, went home for a special occasion. I'm back now, I'll see what else I can do.

Feedback is always useful. It might be hard to know if it's version related or not, but some things should be easy to check in the code.
And yes, new perspectives are always welcome!

[Lakotavar]

I see, sorry for the confusion. It's hard predict how long a botf game takes but it's.. "any day now"
Only the dominion is a serious enemy in our game so probably we finish the game this week.

This is actually the only thing I'd bring up from our last session.
Is there a reason why the difference in power is that big between the dominion and the other empires? I could just imagine to match the power according to lore but this will eventually lead to a similar result in every game.
I think the reason is mostly that the dominion expanses rather aggressively unlike the others. Eventually it could be slightly tweaked.
How would this differ on higher AI settings?

[Iceman]

The Dominion, if you're playing with Canon homesystems, is the only empire in the Gamma Quadrant, unlike other empires which always have another empire in the same quadrant. That gives them more room to expand unopposed. They have the Expansionist trait, which makes them expand for longer than the other empires.