Quasar4x - An Aurora4x VB6 clone q4x

[TMaekler]

Quasar 4x has gone into C#-sleep? 

[tws029]

Have a look at the first message in this thread.   The game is basically finished except for swarms and invaders.   Kyle indicated they are going to take a little time.

[TMaekler]

Ah, missed, that he edited the first message. Thanks.

[Kyle (OP)]

Progress update 2021-02-28:

Sorry about the long delay.  It will probably be awhile before my next post after this one as well.  I took a bit of a break, but I've been back to working on the game for the past 40 days or so now.  The main reason for not posting is I'm in a very experimental mode with the game.  I've been hard at work on scriptable AI for player races and have a solid framework in place.  I borrow heavily from NPR logic, and have filled in many of the gaps where the NPR's just cheat.  I just reached the point where I need to start writing some AI for ship towing (which NPR's dont need).

However, scriptable AI is now on the backburner.  It's making the development process slow and tedious, and it winds up being slow because a lot of optimization strategies aren't possible.  There's one more big problem: One motivation for 100% Automation is the possibilities it opens up for multiplayer, wherein a player could theoretically log off for the night and their empire would be auto-managed for them until they returned.  But quasar's current user-editable AI scripts update the database directly, and could easily be changed by a player to cheat or even wipe the DB, so it's completely useless for any multiplayer experiments.  I would need to rework them so that only "legal" updates are possible.

Thus, I've realized I need to switch gears.  Rather than continue with the 100% automation project, I'm going to start adding new Default Orders, Conditional Orders, and possibly improving Order Templates as well.  Once these improved fleet management tools are in place, I'll update the Automation scripts to use these tools rather than micromanage everything on their own.

This will be a significant deviation from any flavor of Aurora, probably the first of many.  To keep Aurora faithfulness alive, I've added a Classic Mode checkbox to the existing Quasar settings window. In Classic Mode, Quasar will look like it does today -- very close to VB6, with the addition of cherry picked C# features such as Prototypes.  In Modern Mode (box unchecked), all my new buttons, UI windows, default orders, etc will be visible.  The checkbox shows and hides these new UI elements in real time.  This gives me a lot of freedom to experiment and add new features in my quest to reduce micromanagement and improve QoL.

Again, I'm still in a very experimental stage, and will be for a long while.  This has been a snapshot of where I am right now, things could always change.

[iceball3]

Progress update 2021-02-28:

Sorry about the long delay.  It will probably be awhile before my next post after this one as well.  I took a bit of a break, but I've been back to working on the game for the past 40 days or so now.  The main reason for not posting is I'm in a very experimental mode with the game.  I've been hard at work on scriptable AI for player races and have a solid framework in place.  I borrow heavily from NPR logic, and have filled in many of the gaps where the NPR's just cheat.  I just reached the point where I need to start writing some AI for ship towing (which NPR's dont need).

However, scriptable AI is now on the backburner.  It's making the development process slow and tedious, and it winds up being slow because a lot of optimization strategies aren't possible.  There's one more big problem: One motivation for 100% Automation is the possibilities it opens up for multiplayer, wherein a player could theoretically log off for the night and their empire would be auto-managed for them until they returned.  But quasar's current user-editable AI scripts update the database directly, and could easily be changed by a player to cheat or even wipe the DB, so it's completely useless for any multiplayer experiments.  I would need to rework them so that only "legal" updates are possible.

Thus, I've realized I need to switch gears.  Rather than continue with the 100% automation project, I'm going to start adding new Default Orders, Conditional Orders, and possibly improving Order Templates as well.  Once these improved fleet management tools are in place, I'll update the Automation scripts to use these tools rather than micromanage everything on their own.

This will be a significant deviation from any flavor of Aurora, probably the first of many.  To keep Aurora faithfulness alive, I've added a Classic Mode checkbox to the existing Quasar settings window. In Classic Mode, Quasar will look like it does today -- very close to VB6, with the addition of cherry picked C# features such as Prototypes.  In Modern Mode (box unchecked), all my new buttons, UI windows, default orders, etc will be visible.  The checkbox shows and hides these new UI elements in real time.  This gives me a lot of freedom to experiment and add new features in my quest to reduce micromanagement and improve QoL.

Again, I'm still in a very experimental stage, and will be for a long while.  This has been a snapshot of where I am right now, things could always change.

Hype! Thanks for the status report.
Are star swarms and extra galactic invaders still tucked behind the AI framework, or are you considering getting them in beforehand to get the game to it's VB6 esque state before then?

Another question: are precursors and xenoarchaeology implemented yet? The OP doesn't mention that they aren't, but load save screen and new save screen seems to indicate they're not implemented yet in the mouseover text, and i was wondering if it was still the case.

[TMaekler]

Are you open for new ideas for automation etc.? Especially the automation part of Aurora could use a nice rework... .

[Kyle (OP)]

A brief update to my post above, I'm still very much in a crossroads with my plans -- that's one of the reasons I took a break to pop back into the forum after so long.  To that end, I'm modifying my plans from "Rather than continue with the 100% automation project" to "In parallel with the 100% automation project." No particular reason, other than I'm feeling more optimistic today

Are you open for new ideas for automation etc.? Especially the automation part of Aurora could use a nice rework... .

As long as you understand none of the ideas are guaranteed to make it in, you're welcome to post your ideas.. just please do it in a separate thread

Hype! Thanks for the status report.
Are star swarms and extra galactic invaders still tucked behind the AI framework, or are you considering getting them in beforehand to get the game to it's VB6 esque state before then?

Swarm and Invaders are still way down on my list, mainly because I haven't even gotten a chance to properly engage a normal NPR or precursor yet.  None of my "real" campaigns have gotten that far.  In my most recent "real" campaign, I ran into a serious bug (now fixed) that made it necessary to start over from the beginning, and at that point I wanted to start working on automation goodies rather than play the early game all over again.  Once NPR's and precursors become old news for me, that's when I'll add swarm/invaders.

Another question: are precursors and xenoarchaeology implemented yet? The OP doesn't mention that they aren't, but load save screen and new save screen seems to indicate they're not implemented yet in the mouseover text, and i was wondering if it was still the case.

Precursors and xenoarchaeology are both in the game, yes.  I'll update the mouseover text.

Thanks for your interest

[TMaekler]

I've just seen that there is an older version of Q4x for Mac. Any plans to keep that updated? Would love to play it on Mac...

[Kyle (OP)]

I've just seen that there is an older version of Q4x for Mac. Any plans to keep that updated? Would love to play it on Mac...

Unfortunately a portion of the game is written in C++ so I need a Mac to compile that part.  The iMac I had died awhile ago, so I currently have no easy way to do that.  I use Oracle's VirtualBox VM to compile for Linux but obviously a Mac image is going to be copyrighted.

[StarshipCactus]

Maybe somebody could lend you their mac to compile?

[Artyom]

Hi!

It seems that the version available on https://ozer0. itch. io/quasar4x is dated from Nov 15, 2020.
Is this information correct?
If yes, is there a newer version available?

Thanks!

[Tchey]

Hello,

It seems november 2020 was the last update, is this project "done", or slow, or lost in void, or something ?

Thanks

[obsidian_green]

I've been waiting for the inclusion of Star Swarms before I try Quasar. I'm sure I'll do some fiction if I play and I wanted that guaranteed aggression as a reason to start building real warships. Is implementing Star Swarm still planned?

[Kyle (OP)]

Progress Update 2021-07-16:

I've been working on q4x off and on for the last few months.  I'm a week or so away from finally releasing a new patch.  Since it's been awhile, this new patch will include a new database incompatible with previous saves.  This lets me clean out all the old version migration code and start fresh.  Thus, future patches will be compatible.

My release post will contain a full list of changes, but generally focus has been on fixes, QoL, and new nice-to-have features that don't change any core mechanics or balance.  Automation features are still experimental and will be disabled by default.

I've been waiting for the inclusion of Star Swarms before I try Quasar. I'm sure I'll do some fiction if I play and I wanted that guaranteed aggression as a reason to start building real warships. Is implementing Star Swarm still planned?

I do plan to include Star Swarm in a future patch.  Given that someone has shown interest, I'll bump up the priority.  Although I will mention, since your interest is in guaranteed aggression, one of the new features in the next patch is another feature that was planned for VB6 7.2, the ability to set minimum and maximum distance of starting NPRs from Sol. 

[Stormtrooper]

Yeah, star swarm, something I wanted to see badly but so far my two camapaigns, one in 1.12 and one in 1.13 were bugged and refused to spawn it no matter how hard I tried.

Also I'm not sure, but I believe you can't use sm to add buildings or change atmosphere, also hydrosphere is irrelevant for colonisation cost. I wanted to do an AAR which requires careful Earth setup and wanted to give quasar a go instead of waiting for the next aurora version (because clean spreadsheet ui is superior to the c# mess that comes without even table lines separating entires in windows), but water being important + free modification of environment + buildings of a planet without having to edit db or something are neccessary for me to do what I would like to do.