Author Topic: Really great and unique game!  (Read 1389 times)

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Offline codewright (OP)

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Really great and unique game!
« on: July 09, 2010, 03:59:33 PM »
I played Aurora for the last month and it really is an astonishing game! I salute you, Steve, and appreciate your hard work! I would love to show that with a donation, if you would take any.

Large distance combat, focus on sensors and actually finding and locating the enemy before any action can be taken. Lack of information about alien technologies until you can test them or salvage them. The resulting thrill of preparing your fleet many years just to see them succeed or fail in a matter of days. Great economic details, but still enough automation to keep it manageable (i.e. civilians). Many, many ways of killing your enemy and getting killed by them. There are so many unique points that it's hard to list them all.

Like, as it seems, many here, i come from Dwarf Fortress, so the lack of graphics is not much of a show-stopper. Yeah, sure, mouse wheeling for zooming would be good and some menus are a bit cluttered, but once you see whats beneath, you stop thinking about those tiny things.

There's just one thing that's getting more and more of a show stopper for me and that's performance. I know there is much to calculate, but i feel like that's not the only reason. The sudden increase in processing time at some point in most of my games doesn't feel naturally. So first of all, is a constant processing time of one minute for 5 day or 30 day ticks normal in a moderately advanced game (i.e. 25 years, 10 of max 100 systems discovered, 1 NPR from the start)? I've got Win7 64bit and a Core 2 Duo E8500. Funnily, while testing further around, the time was reduced to half a minute, without me doing anything (so presumably the AI did stuff.) But I guess it'll change again sooner or later. I've got a save before and after, in case there is interest.

So what processing time is normal for you guys? I'm not talking about interrupted turns. Just plain simple 5-day or 30-day cycles in an rather advanced game. Maybe I'm just expecting too much ;)
 

Offline welchbloke

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Re: Really great and unique game!
« Reply #1 on: July 10, 2010, 01:10:08 PM »
Quote from: "codewright"
There's just one thing that's getting more and more of a show stopper for me and that's performance. I know there is much to calculate, but i feel like that's not the only reason. The sudden increase in processing time at some point in most of my games doesn't feel naturally. So first of all, is a constant processing time of one minute for 5 day or 30 day ticks normal in a moderately advanced game (i.e. 25 years, 10 of max 100 systems discovered, 1 NPR from the start)? I've got Win7 64bit and a Core 2 Duo E8500. Funnily, while testing further around, the time was reduced to half a minute, without me doing anything (so presumably the AI did stuff.) But I guess it'll change again sooner or later. I've got a save before and after, in case there is interest.

So what processing time is normal for you guys? I'm not talking about interrupted turns. Just plain simple 5-day or 30-day cycles in an rather advanced game. Maybe I'm just expecting too much :D   the processing time sounds about the same as I experience.  One of the issues is that every NPR has activity to be processed and even if you start with just you and one other NPR there will be a cascade effect as NPRs are discovered by each other.  One of the games mentioned in another thread had something like 25 NPRs in it; most of which had never met the Player Race.
Welchbloke
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: Really great and unique game!
« Reply #2 on: July 10, 2010, 06:34:52 PM »
Quote from: "codewright"
I played Aurora for the last month and it really is an astonishing game! I salute you, Steve, and appreciate your hard work! I would love to show that with a donation, if you would take any.

Large distance combat, focus on sensors and actually finding and locating the enemy before any action can be taken. Lack of information about alien technologies until you can test them or salvage them. The resulting thrill of preparing your fleet many years just to see them succeed or fail in a matter of days. Great economic details, but still enough automation to keep it manageable (i.e. civilians). Many, many ways of killing your enemy and getting killed by them. There are so many unique points that it's hard to list them all.
Thanks, it's aways good to know the game is appreciated! I am not really set up for donations :)

Quote
Like, as it seems, many here, i come from Dwarf Fortress, so the lack of graphics is not much of a show-stopper. Yeah, sure, mouse wheeling for zooming would be good and some menus are a bit cluttered, but once you see whats beneath, you stop thinking about those tiny things.
VB6 doesn't support the mousewheel so unfortunately I can't do much about that one.

Quote
There's just one thing that's getting more and more of a show stopper for me and that's performance. I know there is much to calculate, but i feel like that's not the only reason. The sudden increase in processing time at some point in most of my games doesn't feel naturally. So first of all, is a constant processing time of one minute for 5 day or 30 day ticks normal in a moderately advanced game (i.e. 25 years, 10 of max 100 systems discovered, 1 NPR from the start)? I've got Win7 64bit and a Core 2 Duo E8500. Funnily, while testing further around, the time was reduced to half a minute, without me doing anything (so presumably the AI did stuff.) But I guess it'll change again sooner or later. I've got a save before and after, in case there is interest.

So what processing time is normal for you guys? I'm not talking about interrupted turns. Just plain simple 5-day or 30-day cycles in an rather advanced game. Maybe I'm just expecting too much :). Over time, I am trying to find way to reduce the overhead but I also keep adding new features so they balance each other out.

Steve
 

Offline codewright (OP)

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Re: Really great and unique game!
« Reply #3 on: July 14, 2010, 12:43:11 PM »
Quote from: "welchbloke"
Welcome aboard  :)

Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
Thanks, it's aways good to know the game is appreciated! I am not really set up for donations :)
Let's hope those 50€ reach you well and unharmed :). Over time, I am trying to find way to reduce the overhead but I also keep adding new features so they balance each other out.
Yeah, i guess it's the problem of having a rich simulation on the one hand and making it comfortable to actually experience this simulation on the other hand. So just make this a note to not forget performance all around. I don't know what profiling tools there are for VB 6, but being a software developer myself, I know well that you can sometimes dramatically increase performance by only solving a few bottlenecks. But for now, i guess it's still bearable :)
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: Really great and unique game!
« Reply #4 on: July 15, 2010, 11:03:04 PM »
Quote from: "codewright"
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
Thanks, it's aways good to know the game is appreciated! I am not really set up for donations :)
Let's hope those 50€ reach you well and unharmed :)
I got a confirmation from paypal. Its much appreciated! Now I know how it works I will put something in announcements.

Steve