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Posted by: liveware
« on: March 03, 2021, 09:37:01 PM »

Quote from: nuclearslurpee on March 03, 2021, 08:55:29 PM
Quote from: liveware on March 03, 2021, 07:43:33 PM
Hmm


My experience is that contacts for hostile factions generate interrupts when they change. This is with unmodified databases.

This is because they trigger a "contact updated" event. These fire when something happens that updates the contact - either new information e.g. detecting the thermal or active sensor signature for the first time, or revising of old information e.g. the contact changes speed or raises shields.

The "edge case" which is not caught is that if a contact is lost and then reacquired with no change to its state (same speed, same sensors on/off, same shield levels, etc.) it will not fire a "contact updated" event, and there is no "contact reacquired" event. This really should be in the game because the edge cases are not uncommon, but right now it is not and we must deal with it somehow.

That's an asinine edge case but I suppose such edge cases should not be surprising.
Posted by: nuclearslurpee
« on: March 03, 2021, 08:55:29 PM »

Quote from: liveware on March 03, 2021, 07:43:33 PM
Hmm


My experience is that contacts for hostile factions generate interrupts when they change. This is with unmodified databases.

This is because they trigger a "contact updated" event. These fire when something happens that updates the contact - either new information e.g. detecting the thermal or active sensor signature for the first time, or revising of old information e.g. the contact changes speed or raises shields.

The "edge case" which is not caught is that if a contact is lost and then reacquired with no change to its state (same speed, same sensors on/off, same shield levels, etc.) it will not fire a "contact updated" event, and there is no "contact reacquired" event. This really should be in the game because the edge cases are not uncommon, but right now it is not and we must deal with it somehow.
Posted by: liveware
« on: March 03, 2021, 07:43:33 PM »

Hmm


My experience is that contacts for hostile factions generate interrupts when they change. This is with unmodified databases.
Posted by: Droll
« on: March 03, 2021, 07:37:35 PM »

Quote from: serger on March 03, 2021, 02:47:32 AM
This campaign's experience cannot be reported in bug reports, because there were DB intrusions in it.

This happens on virgin DBs as well. A ship contact that has been reacquired will not interrupt your increment ever, regardless of whether or not it is set to hostile. It's not a bug per se because I think it's legitimately how the code is written to work however it is quite bad that it happens.

What should happen IMO is that "contact update" no longer interrupts the player whereas a new event "contact reacquired" is made which does interrupt.
Posted by: Stormtrooper
« on: March 03, 2021, 07:05:25 PM »

You seriously think I haven't turned Invaders to hostile through all this time?... SERIOUSLY?...

The game Does. Not. Interrupt. When. Already. Detected. Ships. Reappear. For. The. Second. Time. This is especially visible when they jump in, get detected, jump out and jump in for the second time.

As for your suggestion about sub pulse... I think I waste less IRL time by saving often and sometimes having to reload last save and increment manually than I'd waste by allowing performance-unfriendly subpulse...
Posted by: liveware
« on: March 03, 2021, 06:27:54 PM »

A couple of suggestions:

Manually change the game 'sub pulse' to 5 seconds at the start of every game session (second bar below the time increment bar at top of tactical screen).

If you want game to generate interrupts for a particular faction's ship contacts, change that faction to hostile. The game should generate an interrupt whenever a hostile contact 'changes'.
Posted by: serger
« on: March 03, 2021, 02:47:32 AM »

This campaign's experience cannot be reported in bug reports, because there were DB intrusions in it.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: March 03, 2021, 02:21:33 AM »

Quote from: Stormtrooper on March 02, 2021, 06:15:14 PM
No, jp defence is not worthless - you just save often when you're at war, close the game without saving oncre your fleet gets screwed and then use smaller increments without auto turns till they show up so you can react properly...

Had this happen when running large incrememnts, who knows, maybe what you say is true in theory but in practice too much gets processed within one incremement - detecion including them opening fire as an "extra".

I suggest you add it to the bug report thread then as it is likely not suppose to work like that. The game are suppose to stop when a new contact is detected.
Posted by: Stormtrooper
« on: March 02, 2021, 06:15:14 PM »

No, jp defence is not worthless - you just save often when you're at war, close the game without saving oncre your fleet gets screwed and then use smaller increments without auto turns till they show up so you can react properly...

Had this happen when running large incrememnts, who knows, maybe what you say is true in theory but in practice too much gets processed within one incremement - detecion including them opening fire as an "extra".
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: March 02, 2021, 06:00:52 PM »

Quote from: Stormtrooper on March 02, 2021, 05:24:23 PM
Quote
This should not be a problem really... if they jump back you just run a few 5sec turns and then you can crank up the time again and an interrupt will happen if the jump back in after this

Except it is a problem because what you say here is simply not true - I had multiple occassions when alien ships would jump in, jump out 5 sec later and next time I see them my entire fleet is blasted to hell which obviously can't happen given the jump shock and all that within a single 5s increment, but the game doesn't pause immediately when they arrive.

If this was true then JP defence would be completely worthless... I have yet to experience this happening so maybe you have come across some bug, or you did something wrong that I don't know about?!?
Are you suppose to run 5sec turn for the rest of eternity when sitting and defending a JP?!?

I know for a fact that a contact that appear in a new system is a new contact and if they are flagged as hostile should cause an interrupt.

I bet Steve would have changed the behaviour if he himself experience this in his games as he should be as frustrated as you I believe.
Posted by: Stormtrooper
« on: March 02, 2021, 05:24:23 PM »

Quote
This should not be a problem really... if they jump back you just run a few 5sec turns and then you can crank up the time again and an interrupt will happen if the jump back in after this

Except it is a problem because what you say here is simply not true - I had multiple occassions when alien ships would jump in, jump out 5 sec later and next time I see them my entire fleet is blasted to hell which obviously can't happen given the jump shock and all that within a single 5s increment, but the game doesn't pause immediately when they arrive.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: March 02, 2021, 04:58:53 PM »

Quote from: Stormtrooper on March 02, 2021, 03:54:27 PM
ok, so I guess my ancient memory comes from updated contacts (I had this turned off but recently used event toggler to turn them back on as this helps at least with some cases), but jump points are the worst. They jump in, jump out and now I have a hostile fleet god knows where waiting to blast my everything because the game doesn't pause the next time they arrive.

This should not be a problem really... if they jump back you just run a few 5sec turns and then you can crank up the time again and an interrupt will happen if the jump back in after this. The only way it would happen is if you allow them to jump out and then back in the same turn, I don't see how you would ever let a hostile contact do this.

When a contact jump into a new system and it is registered as being in that system it is a "new" contact, the same is true if it then later jumps back into the system you are in.

There could be a problem if you see the contact on the other side and then allow for a long turn and they jump into the next system, not sure how the game would handle the contact as new or not... don't thin I ever was in that particular situation. But then I wonder why you would be running long turns anyway if this was the case.
Posted by: Stormtrooper
« on: March 02, 2021, 03:54:27 PM »

ok, so I guess my ancient memory comes from updated contacts (I had this turned off but recently used event toggler to turn them back on as this helps at least with some cases), but jump points are the worst. They jump in, jump out and now I have a hostile fleet god knows where waiting to blast my everything because the game doesn't pause the next time they arrive.
Posted by: Zap0
« on: March 02, 2021, 03:45:34 PM »

Certainly not for neutral ones, which is what aliens generally start out as. Hostile ones have the flags set for new contacts and updates, but does updates include reacquisition?

I'm pretty sure I've not been getting events when something reappears on sensors. That's one of the reasons why the message logs were are so empty when looking for the cause of an interrupt loop.

I've got problems with mechanics like ground combat, sto and missile defense being tied to hostile diplo status anyway (let them be independent of that), because that way you can't decide to only start a fight on one body, or ignore certain neutral empires in shared systems (Sol), but react to them entering your claimed space.
Posted by: nuclearslurpee
« on: March 02, 2021, 03:35:19 PM »

Quote from: Stormtrooper on March 02, 2021, 03:06:29 PM
Wait, so is my memort playing with me and it is a default behaviour for ships to not pause the game if they reappear on the radars?

It's not a default behavior, but it can be easy to be fooled because the game pauses when a hostile contact is "updated", for example if a contact Enemyship 007 turns on its active sensors or changes its speed this will interrupt the game tick. However I believe if a contact is reacquired after being lost but no "update" occurs there may not be a pause because no event is triggered.

It's probably worth posting in the suggestions thread to make "contact reacquired" fire an event separately from contact updates.