Author Topic: Quasar4x - An Aurora4x VB6 clone  (Read 161781 times)

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Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: Quasar4x - An early look at an Aurora4x clone in the works
« Reply #120 on: July 16, 2019, 06:15:22 PM »
A question about Fleet Orders:

In VB6 Aurora, most (but definitely not all) unload orders will create a colony at the destination if there isn't one.  This leads to two bugs:  (A) the rare order that does not automatically create a colony, causing items to disappear or future orders to fail, and (B) the creation of multiple colonies on the same rock, because (for example) installations were sent from two different sources.

Will Quasar alter these errors in some way?

In case it helps, for C# Aurora, I have removed the automated creation of colonies by fleet orders. Instead, you create them manually on the Fleet Orders, System View or Mineral Search windows. This is clearer and avoids bugs.
 

Offline Kyle (OP)

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Re: Quasar4x - An early look at an Aurora4x clone in the works
« Reply #121 on: July 16, 2019, 09:32:57 PM »
A question about Fleet Orders:

In VB6 Aurora, most (but definitely not all) unload orders will create a colony at the destination if there isn't one.  This leads to two bugs:  (A) the rare order that does not automatically create a colony, causing items to disappear or future orders to fail, and (B) the creation of multiple colonies on the same rock, because (for example) installations were sent from two different sources.

Will Quasar alter these errors in some way?

In case it helps, for C# Aurora, I have removed the automated creation of colonies by fleet orders. Instead, you create them manually on the Fleet Orders, System View or Mineral Search windows. This is clearer and avoids bugs.

Good to know!  This is what I'll do then.
 

Offline Kyle (OP)

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Re: Quasar4x - An early look at an Aurora4x clone in the works
« Reply #122 on: July 19, 2019, 10:41:35 AM »
Progress update 2019-07-19:

Completed some more fleet orders.  The list now looks like this:

Standard Transit
Move to
Join
Load Colonists
Refuel Target Fleet
Unload Colonists
Refuel from Colony
Divide Fleet into Single Ships
Geological Survey
Gravitational Survey
Load Fuel Refinery
Load Construction Factory
Load Mine
.
.
.

One additional side-task completed was fleet interception.  I first noticed the interception trajectory occurring in A4X while testing 'Refuel Target Fleet', and wound up spending quite a bit of time adding my own interception code.  That was a fun experience.. it really tested my memory of high school math (and my ability to re-learn what I've forgotten).  Pay attention when your teacher covers quadratics and discriminants kids, you'll need it some day.  I included support for maintaining a minimum distance from a moving target (fleeing if necessary), making a best effort trajectory when your ship is too slow to ever catch up, and landing on an intercept point that occurs between sub pulses rather than in the middle of one of them.  This should make missile code much less work later on!  I tried to catch all the edge cases but if I missed any I'll fix them.  My intention is to make the minimum distance setting "just work."

A question about Fleet Orders:

In VB6 Aurora, most (but definitely not all) unload orders will create a colony at the destination if there isn't one.  This leads to two bugs:  (A) the rare order that does not automatically create a colony, causing items to disappear or future orders to fail, and (B) the creation of multiple colonies on the same rock, because (for example) installations were sent from two different sources.

Will Quasar alter these errors in some way?

In case it helps, for C# Aurora, I have removed the automated creation of colonies by fleet orders. Instead, you create them manually on the Fleet Orders, System View or Mineral Search windows. This is clearer and avoids bugs.

Good to know!  This is what I'll do then.

This warning from Tim and info from Steve saved me a ton of time, thank you both.  I would have seen the automatic population creation and tried to reproduce it, unknowingly heading myself into a quagmire of tricky issues to solve.  My Unload Colonist code safely pops up a notice that the order is not possible if the target isn't suitable.  So this kind of input is exactly what I need going forward, keep it coming.  I haven't actually played A4X long enough to run into most of these kind of not-immediately-apparent problems that creep up on the veterans.

I also added support in 'load/unload colonists' for carrying multiple species, even on the same ship, and the fleet will unload the correct species based on where you tell a ship to unload.

Onward!
 
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Offline SerBeardian

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Re: Quasar4x - An early look at an Aurora4x clone in the works
« Reply #123 on: July 23, 2019, 04:45:15 PM »
Quote
So this kind of input is exactly what I need going forward, keep it coming.


Not sure if this is what you meant by this (as some on the Discord think), and I'm sure some of this stuff will already be fixed simply by the code rewrite, but:
Deep Breath
- Missile Tracking Bonus doesn't work at all.
- PD not firing within first tick of missile launch (ie. at point blank)
- Docked ships calculate deployment time based on time since launch from hangar, letting hangars essentially reset morale clock instantly.
- PDCs and Orbitals are not scrappable via industry, only shipyard. PDCs can be refitted, but Orbitals can't. Which means your Orbital is stuck as it is until you can get a shipyard large enough to accommodate. This is not really practical when Orbitals are frequently >1mton. You're also stuck with PDCs where they are forever as well, even if you can keep them up to date.
- PDCs also can't store MSP at all. This means they can't repair docked ships (which may be a design choice), but it also means they can't Damage Control themselves either. Since PDCs can't be repaired via industry either, this means repairing PDCs is essentially impossible.
- The Tractor Train bug - Ship A tractoring Ship B tractoring Ship C makes the whole thing ignore Ship C's mass when calculating speed. Same with Ship C and D and E... This means that you can have two FACs with tractor beams pull a multi megaton station around at thousands of km/s.
- Tug Fuel bug - Tugs use fuel when attached as if they were not. This means that when a tug loses 95% of it's speed due to pulling a giant station around, it will also use 95% less fuel as if it's throttle was set to 5%, when it should be at 100%.
- A few problems encountered when ships have zero fuel capacity, like PDCs and Orbitals without any fuel tanks. Specifically anything related to them moving around.
- Ships restocking crew losses will sometimes pick up too much crew, resulting in life support failures. This problem has proven impossible to fix without deleting and respawning the ship.
- Releasing a shipyard from a tug while away from a colony = very bad juju. Shipyards should be able to exist away from colonies (even if they can't work), and also be picked up and moved again later.
- Related to the "slow missile flying backwards" bug, two-stage missiles seem to calculate the release point based on the distance to intercept point, but the intercept point seems to be based on the carrier stage speed and time on target. This means that if your carrier stage is very slow and a fast ship is the target, then the intercept point could be a lot closer than the separation distance, resulting in some really dodgy separation windows (like a 20mkm terminal stage with a 18mkm separation distance separating 140mkm away from the target).
- More annoyance than bug: opening the component design window without having any levels in all the Active Sensor techs throws an error at you that you don't have the required tech (because Active Sensors are the default option). This doesn't affect gameplay since you can ignore the error and move on to the component you want to design, and you'll have all Active techs soon enough anyway, but this error popup probably shouldn't be as obnoxious. I would recommend only appearing when you try and actually confirm a component that is missing techs.
- Not being able to queue the next level of the tech that your scientist is working on eg. queuing Mining 14 immediately after Mining 12 for the same scientist. You have to queue another tech first, then either wait for that tech to finish, or cancel the research and put the one you want in, losing any other queued techs in the process. Related: Not being able to switch out the current research without cancelling the entire job, which means losing your research queue for that scientist.
- Planets with Ruins do not have Relics available as an export good for Civ shipping.
- Not being able to flag a colony as "not for population use", resulting in civs shipping colonists to that 0-cost colony you just created... on the enemy homeworld so you could land your invasion force.
- Being unable to manually set colony categories. Especially egregious for orbital mining colonies, which are considered "other colonies" by the game.
- Automated Assignments will auto-assign Leaders (which is great!). It will also fire anyone without a job for 6 years, and anyone over 65 without a job. This is crippling when you're just starting to build your navy and just DON'T HAVE enough ships to give them all jobs, but have too many ships to allocate officers manually, resulting in mass layoffs (or many, many lost officers gathered from before you started building a navy). Even worse: This will can scientists as well! That 65% PP guy you have a break to because you needed all labs on a different project? Retired now!
- No ability to pick up POWs from your colonies once dropped off (or do anything else to them for that matter).
- SM Jump Points: While the buttons all work, a lot of the Jump Point modifications done via SM don't update the displayed JP information unless you press other buttons (like linking a JP doesn't show that link unless you press "enter/explore JP" afterwards.
- There's a HW Minerals button that runs the HW mineral generation process, there's an ALL Minerals button that rerolls the entire system, but there's no "This Body" button that rerolls just that one planet naturally. I would request this button.

Aaand I'm out of time, gotta get to work, but that's my big gripes atm that are bugs or annoyances that stick true to AVB6. Might post more later.
 
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Offline Kyle (OP)

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Re: Quasar4x - An early look at an Aurora4x clone in the works
« Reply #124 on: July 25, 2019, 12:35:05 PM »
Not sure if this is what you meant by this (as some on the Discord think), and I'm sure some of this stuff will already be fixed simply by the code rewrite, but:

- Missile Tracking Bonus doesn't work at all.
sounds like something I would fix right away i'm leaving this broken for now, to match Aurora 7.1.

- PD not firing within first tick of missile launch (ie. at point blank)
sounds like an order of operations thing, but it sounds annoying, I'll see what I can do  low priority to change this  fixed

- Docked ships calculate deployment time based on time since launch from hangar, letting hangars essentially reset morale clock instantly.
sounds like a missing check for recreational modules? I just saw http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=4819.msg48844;topicseen#msg48844 Leaving as-is for now until I gather more info.

- PDCs and Orbitals are not scrappable via industry, only shipyard. PDCs can be refitted, but Orbitals can't. Which means your Orbital is stuck as it is until you can get a shipyard large enough to accommodate. This is not really practical when Orbitals are frequently >1mton. You're also stuck with PDCs where they are forever as well, even if you can keep them up to date.
I'll keep this in mind.  Would like to know why it is currently this way. 

- PDCs also can't store MSP at all. This means they can't repair docked ships (which may be a design choice), but it also means they can't Damage Control themselves either. Since PDCs can't be repaired via industry either, this means repairing PDCs is essentially impossible.
No DC or repair sounds super annoying, and doesn't make sense. My guess is it's just more development time that never made it to the top of the list?  Unfortunately not something I would change right away, in interest of saving time

- The Tractor Train bug - Ship A tractoring Ship B tractoring Ship C makes the whole thing ignore Ship C's mass when calculating speed. Same with Ship C and D and E... This means that you can have two FACs with tractor beams pull a multi megaton station around at thousands of km/s.
Will fix this one the minute I get to this fleet order, and sounds like an easy fixIt doesn't appear that A4X intends to support tractor trains, unfortunately.  In Q4X I've made it so that trains should be impossible to create.

- Tug Fuel bug - Tugs use fuel when attached as if they were not. This means that when a tug loses 95% of it's speed due to pulling a giant station around, it will also use 95% less fuel as if it's throttle was set to 5%, when it should be at 100%.
Will fix as soon as i get to tugs, and sounds easy Fixed!

- A few problems encountered when ships have zero fuel capacity, like PDCs and Orbitals without any fuel tanks. Specifically anything related to them moving around.
Will keep in mind.

- Ships restocking crew losses will sometimes pick up too much crew, resulting in life support failures. This problem has proven impossible to fix without deleting and respawning the ship.
Will fix / prevent as soon as I get to this point, and sounds easy to fix

- Releasing a shipyard from a tug while away from a colony = very bad juju. Shipyards should be able to exist away from colonies (even if they can't work), and also be picked up and moved again later.
Will fix as soon as I get to this point From the database structure in A4X, it's clear that shipyards aren't intended to be released in space. In Q4X, I've made it impossible to release a shipyard anywhere other than at a friendly population. Shipyards are destroyed if their tug is destroyed.

- Related to the "slow missile flying backwards" bug,
Will fix, and sounds funny, can't wait to see this

- two-stage missiles seem to calculate the release point based on the distance to intercept point, but the intercept point seems to be based on the carrier stage speed and time on target. This means that if your carrier stage is very slow and a fast ship is the target, then the intercept point could be a lot closer than the separation distance, resulting in some really dodgy separation windows (like a 20mkm terminal stage with a 18mkm separation distance separating 140mkm away from the target).
- Will try to fix if at all possible!

- More annoyance than bug: opening the component design window without having any levels in all the Active Sensor techs throws an error at you that you don't have the required tech (because Active Sensors are the default option).
Oh that got annoying real quick.  Already changed, this is how it works now:
Off-Topic: show


- Not being able to queue the next level of the tech that your scientist is working on eg. queuing Mining 14 immediately after Mining 12 for the same scientist. You have to queue another tech first, then either wait for that tech to finish, or cancel the research and put the one you want in, losing any other queued techs in the process. Related: Not being able to switch out the current research without cancelling the entire job, which means losing your research queue for that scientist.
nice to have but will delay for now

- Planets with Ruins do not have Relics available as an export good for Civ shipping.
nice to have but will delay for now (and need to research it more)

- Not being able to flag a colony as "not for population use", resulting in civs shipping colonists to that 0-cost colony you just created... on the enemy homeworld so you could land your invasion force.
sounds like an easy fix to the civ ai, when i get to that point

- Being unable to manually set colony categories. Especially egregious for orbital mining colonies, which are considered "other colonies" by the game.
has bothered me too, but will delay for now

- Automated Assignments will auto-assign Leaders (which is great!). It will also fire anyone without a job for 6 years, and anyone over 65 without a job. This is crippling when you're just starting to build your navy and just DON'T HAVE enough ships to give them all jobs, but have too many ships to allocate officers manually, resulting in mass layoffs (or many, many lost officers gathered from before you started building a navy). Even worse: This will can scientists as well! That 65% PP guy you have a break to because you needed all labs on a different project? Retired now!
probably won't change, but we'll see

- No ability to pick up POWs from your colonies once dropped off (or do anything else to them for that matter).
will research further when i get to this point

- SM Jump Points: While the buttons all work, a lot of the Jump Point modifications done via SM don't update the displayed JP information unless you press other buttons (like linking a JP doesn't show that link unless you press
"enter/explore JP" afterwards.
might actually be a non-issue already but either way my philosophy is to make the refresh button irrelevant. I want every window to be correct at every point in time. Currently, the refresh button is still often necessary but that's because the program is still rapidly growing.  Implementing magical auto refresh will be a phase down the road.  Most likely i will just have every user input trigger the global refresh since it's so fast anyway, with optimizations here and there for any noticeable UI lag (F9 is probably the only window with any noticeable UI lag). You can already see how fast Refresh All is, all the animations I post have a global UI refresh after every frame.

- There's a HW Minerals button that runs the HW mineral generation process, there's an ALL Minerals button that rerolls the entire system, but there's no "This Body" button that rerolls just that one planet naturally. I would request this button.
That struck me as odd. will most likely add since it's useful for testing, its very easy to add, and there's room for it This has been added, the button is called SB Minerals

Thanks for the input!  For any new input just keep in mind that nice-to-haves will be put on the back burner.  Changes that reduce workload AND prevent future bugginess are the juicy ones I'm looking for, like the elimination of auto-colonies.

Edit: might be changing some responses as more information becomes available to me.  I'll mark edits with strikethrough.  Not going to bother with any sort of official organization for now since I'm in creation mode and these are just things I'm keeping in mind
« Last Edit: February 15, 2020, 02:12:12 PM by Kyle »
 

Offline JacenHan

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Re: Quasar4x - An early look at an Aurora4x clone in the works
« Reply #125 on: July 25, 2019, 12:46:21 PM »
- PD not firing within first tick of missile launch (ie. at point blank)

I thought this was considered a feature? I know Steve intentionally used it a few times in his campaigns, even if it was changed for C#. I personally prefer the new system, but if the goal is to remain as close to VB6 as possible, sans bugs, this seems like something that would stay the same.
 

Offline Kyle (OP)

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Re: Quasar4x - An early look at an Aurora4x clone in the works
« Reply #126 on: July 25, 2019, 03:06:50 PM »
Progress update 2019-07-25

More fleet orders implemented, up through and including Land on Assigned Mothership -- which means for the first time Quasar4x supports parasites!  There is a still lot of work to be done with parasites but I've got a foothold now, enough to land them, launch them, and start adding working on additional parasite-related fleet orders and parasite UI elements that are currently just placeholders.

I grouped together installations on my fleet order checklist since they're all mostly the same implementation.  So my fleet order checklist now looks like this:

Standard Transit
Move to
Join
Load Colonists
Refuel Target Fleet
Unload Colonists
Refuel from Colony
Divide Fleet into Single Ships
Geological Survey
Gravitational Survey
Load [Installation]
Unload [Installation]
Refuel from own Tankers
Reload Own Fleet from Colliers
Provide Ordnance Reload for
Load Ordnance from Colony
Squadron Transit
Land on Assigned Mothership
Follow
Load [Mineral Type]
Unload [Mineral Type]
Load All Minerals
Unload All Minerals
Build Jump Gate
Unload 90% Fuel to Colony
Refuel from Target Fleet
Activate Shields
Deactivate Shields
Load [Mineral Type] when X available
Pickup Commander
Drop Off Commander
Load Ground Unit into Transport Bay
Unload Ground Unit from Transport Bay
Unload All Ground Units from Transport Bay
Enter Hyper Speed
Leave Hyper Speed
Equalise Fuel Percentage
Equalise Maintenance Supplies
Incorporate Sub-Fleets
Transit and Divide Fleet
Detach Non-Survey Ships
Unload All Installations
Rescue Survivors
Unload Survivors
Deploy Escorts
Detach Tankers
Detach Colliers
Active Sensors On
Active Sensors Off
Pickup Team
Drop Off Team
Salvage
Send Message
Begin Overhaul (rewind clock)
Abandon Overhaul
Absorb
Activate Transponder
Deactivate Transponder
Intra-system Jump
Resupply from Colony
Resupply Target Fleet
Resupply from Target Fleet
Resupply from own Supply Ships
Unload 90% Maint Supplies to Colony
Load PDC Component
Unload PDC Component
Extended Orbit
Launch Missiles at
Load Trade Goods
Unload Trade Goods
Move To Trade Location
Picket (Speed 1km/s)
Load Ship Component
Unload Ship Component
Load Ground Unit into Drop Module
Combat Drop Ground Unit
Load GU into Drop Module from Fleet
Load GU into Drop Module within Fleet
Attempt Boarding Action
Move To Wreck
Move to Mineral Site
Receive Cargo
Unload Ordnance to Colony
Land on Specified Mothership (No Assign)
Land on Specified Mothership (+ Assign)
Tractor Specified Ship
Tractor Specified Shipyard
Release Tractored Ships
Release Tractored Shipyards
Load/Unload Minerals to Reserve Level
Load/Unload Fuel (To Set Level)
Load/Unload Supplies (To Set Level)
Add Replacement Crew
Enter Wormhole

Here's a grav survey revealing jump points:



And here's a bunch of survey parasites.  Granted these could have just been ordinary ships, but they are indeed parasites and were previously docked on a mothership, carried to Sol, launched, and divided.



Looking forward to the combat animations? :) I *wanted* to have the carrier fly in from the bottom of the screen to the center in this animation and then automatically divide, creating a firework-like effect.  The caption was going to be: "Ready for some fireworks?"  But sadly, there's no Launch Parasites order and dividing just keeps the parasites in the same TG.  Darn!

A lot of other bits and bobs have been added outside of the fleet orders checklist.  Cycle moves is implemented.  The following events can now occur:
   Overallocation of Labs
   Reduction in Labs
   Shore Leave Complete
   Transit Failure
   Probe Out of Fuel (occurs when cycle moves gets cancelled due to a problem.  Its a weird event name but I'm keeping it because I find it funny.)
   Illegal Order
   Orders Not Possible
   Jump Point Found
   Unable To Land
   Loading Problem

The following UI elements were implemented:
   SM Add (for Fighters) (on Industry tab)
   Current Mothership (Ships window)
   Assign Mothership (Ships window)
   Land Parasite (Ships window)
   Launch Parasite (Ships window)

The following behaviors were added that are different from A4X:
- Can't land more parasites on a mothership than the current hangar capacity available
- Can't teleport installations using load/unload with a gigantic minimum distance.
- Limiting the amount of things to load on a ship doesnt increase the load time 20 fold
- Can't cancel a time-based order such as loading installations to eliminate loading times without SM enabled
- Prevent weirdness caused by cycling orders with disjointed system locations

Of course, it's kind of funny to list the fixed issues given that I'm leaving behind an enormous wake of my own bugs and unfinished bits :)

Work on fleet orders continues, and most likely will finish some more parasite-related UI elements. Onward!
 
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Offline se5a

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Re: Quasar4x - An early look at an Aurora4x clone in the works
« Reply #127 on: July 27, 2019, 04:56:04 PM »
Nice,
How'd you select the target for the parasites?
 

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Re: Quasar4x - An early look at an Aurora4x clone in the works
« Reply #128 on: July 29, 2019, 01:31:33 PM »
Fantastic stuff!
If you were hoping for a silly fireworks effect, I know VB6 aurora has a "deploy escorts" option that might be handy, though as you've said, you haven't gotten to it yet.  :)
Do take care with recreating one though! I remember I stopped using that one much because it was -really- buggy at times.
 
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Offline Gram123

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Re: Quasar4x - An early look at an Aurora4x clone in the works
« Reply #129 on: July 31, 2019, 08:20:46 AM »
Earlier in this thread you followed Quill18's youtube video.  I Just wonder, did he upload his database someplace since you are able to replicate that game.  If so where?
 

Offline Kyle (OP)

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Re: Quasar4x - An early look at an Aurora4x clone in the works
« Reply #130 on: July 31, 2019, 02:36:42 PM »
Progress update 2019-07-31:

No specific milestones achieved, just a lot more stuff done, including:

Follow
Load [Mineral Type]
Unload [Mineral Type]
Load All Minerals
Unload All Minerals
Build Jump Gate
Unload 90% Fuel to Colony
Refuel from Target Fleet
Activate Shields
Deactivate Shields
Load [Mineral Type] when X available
Pickup Commander
Drop Off Commander
Load Ground Unit into Transport Bay
Unload Ground Unit from Transport Bay
Unload All Ground Units from Transport Bay
Equalise Fuel Percentage
Equalise Maintenance Supplies
Incorporate Sub-Fleets
Transit and Divide Fleet
Detach Non-Survey Ships
Unload All Installations
Rescue Survivors
Unload Survivors
Deploy Escorts
Detach Tankers
Detach Colliers
Active Sensors On
Active Sensors Off

Fixes from A4X:
- Load All Minerals honors the Maximum Amount to Load number
- Detaching ships of a certain class doesn't miscalculate the new fleet's maximum speed

Removed "enter/leave hyperspace" from my list of orders to do, and removed the Hyper Limit checkbox from the system map.

Unload survivors is a little odd.  You get more crew back into your pool than there were survivors.  You seem to get back the # of survivors x Grade Points / 100, or that's just a coincidence and it's a bug, but that's how I'm doing it for now.  It vaguely makes sense, as a way to remember that these are "better" crew than the greenies idling back at your capital. In my test case, I gained 40 crew from 21 survivors rated at 196 grade points.

Additional things implemented in the UI:
List of survivors on the Ships window, and the Eject Into Space button
Fighter Squadrons window (was previously all placeholder) is fully functional now except for the display of the Commander, Ordnance, the Reload button... and double clicking the fighter list 'cause I just realized I forgot it

Earlier in this thread you followed Quill18's youtube video.  I Just wonder, did he upload his database someplace since you are able to replicate that game.  If so where?
Nah, I just roughly took the same actions he did in roughly the same order.
Fantastic stuff!
If you were hoping for a silly fireworks effect, I know VB6 aurora has a "deploy escorts" option that might be handy, though as you've said, you haven't gotten to it yet.  :)
Do take care with recreating one though! I remember I stopped using that one much because it was -really- buggy at times.
Yup, I just finished my "first draft" of deploy escorts functionality and slammed into some error popups on the VB6 side.  Fortunately I know what's *supposed* to happen so I just go off of that instead of the db diffs.
Nice,
How'd you select the target for the parasites?
I set the default order to Survey Nearest Body before dividing the fleet up, and then copied orders (including default orders) to the new subordinate fleets of parasites.


Hoping to have Fleet Orders done by my next progress update.  Not gonna lie, it's been a real grind, and I can't wait til it's over!
« Last Edit: July 31, 2019, 02:39:01 PM by Kyle »
 
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Offline TMaekler

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Re: Quasar4x - An early look at an Aurora4x clone in the works
« Reply #131 on: August 01, 2019, 01:23:03 AM »
Unload survivors is a little odd.  You get more crew back into your pool than there were survivors.  You seem to get back the # of survivors x Grade Points / 100, or that's just a coincidence and it's a bug, but that's how I'm doing it for now.  It vaguely makes sense, as a way to remember that these are "better" crew than the greenies idling back at your capital. In my test case, I gained 40 crew from 21 survivors rated at 196 grade points.
Hmmm, Steve should take a look at that. Sounds odd... maybe he can clear up, what is happening there... well, not maybe, only he can :-)
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: Quasar4x - An early look at an Aurora4x clone in the works
« Reply #132 on: August 01, 2019, 02:58:57 AM »
Unload survivors is a little odd.  You get more crew back into your pool than there were survivors.  You seem to get back the # of survivors x Grade Points / 100, or that's just a coincidence and it's a bug, but that's how I'm doing it for now.  It vaguely makes sense, as a way to remember that these are "better" crew than the greenies idling back at your capital. In my test case, I gained 40 crew from 21 survivors rated at 196 grade points.
Hmmm, Steve should take a look at that. Sounds odd... maybe he can clear up, what is happening there... well, not maybe, only he can :-)

That is working as intended. The pool doesn't track grade, so if you add higher grade survivors to the pool you create additional crew to reflect that experience.
 
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Offline Kyle (OP)

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Re: Quasar4x - An early look at an Aurora4x clone in the works
« Reply #133 on: August 01, 2019, 12:22:18 PM »
Woohoo, I guessed right :D
 
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Re: Quasar4x - An early look at an Aurora4x clone in the works
« Reply #134 on: August 10, 2019, 07:34:50 PM »
Progress update 2019-08-10:

At long last, I am done with Fleet Orders!!*

*With a few exceptions that will be done later

The following orders were completed:

Pickup Team
Drop Off Team
Salvage
Send Message
Begin Overhaul (rewind clock)
Abandon Overhaul
Absorb
Activate Transponder
Deactivate Transponder
Resupply from Colony
Resupply Target Fleet
Resupply from Target Fleet
Resupply from own Supply Ships
Unload 90% Maint Supplies to Colony
Load PDC Component
Unload PDC Component
Extended Orbit
Picket (Speed 1km/s)
Load Ship Component
Unload Ship Component
Load Ground Unit into Drop Module
Combat Drop Ground Unit
Load GU into Drop Module from Fleet
Load GU into Drop Module within Fleet
Unload Ordnance to Colony
Land on Specified Mothership (No Assign)
Land on Specified Mothership (+ Assign)
Tractor Specified Ship
Tractor Specified Shipyard
Release Tractored Ships
Release Tractored Shipyards
Load/Unload Minerals to Reserve Level
Load/Unload Fuel (To Set Level)
Load/Unload Supplies (To Set Level)
Add Replacement Crew

The following mechanics were completed:
- Overhauling (and regular maintenance while in orbit)
- Constructing PDC Prefabs

The following UI elements are now functional:
- Prefab PDC components list (F2 > Industry tab > Stockpiles button)
- Show current tractor link (On ships window, Misc tab)
- List available other ships to link to
- Create Link
- Break Link

The following issues in A4X were dodged:
- In A4X, when calculating speed, there is a bug where the effective size of a pair of linked ships is the Tug's size plus the Tug's size.  In Q4X this is fixed and the Tug's effective size is the Tug's size plus the payload's size.
- In Q4X, Fuel use of the Tug correctly factors in the mass of its payload (so fuel use is higher than in A4X)
- In Q4X, Ships being tugged dont use fuel
- From the database structure in A4X, it's clear that shipyards aren't meant to ever be released in space.  In Q4X, It's impossible to release a shipyard anywhere other than at a friendly population. Shipyards are destroyed if their tug is destroyed.
- The Load/Unload To Reserve (or Set) Level orders in A4X acted weird when I tried them out, so I just implemented these how they are supposed to work according to this post rather than try to figure out what A4X is doing.  I've also made it so the fleet will make the best attempt and the order won't fail if it can't match the reserve or set amount perfectly.

Phew!!!

So, there are still quite a few basic mechanics to implement such as mass drivers, but first I really need to dive into System Generation.  It's the area I've been least looking forward to, so I really need to tackle this before moving on.  If I can manage to get this part done then I'm going to be pretty confident I can handle everything else.  It's tempting to just generate 10000 systems in A4X overnight with a mouse-click script and pack them all into a zip file for Q4X to pick from but no!  I must resist! 

At this moment I have no idea how I'm going to do this, but I will post my progress when I make it.  Onward!
« Last Edit: August 10, 2019, 07:36:32 PM by Kyle »
 
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