Aurora 4x
C# Aurora => General Discussion => Topic started by: Stormtrooper on December 30, 2020, 12:08:08 PM
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So I made a mistake of setting up my game with 3 damn starting NPRs and now I want to remove them since I figured out it doesn't affect my gameplay but probably does affect my performance badly and the game could run much faster without them clogging my cpu.
Heard it's not possible to do using spacemaster, anyone willing to share step by step db editing guide so that I don' wreck my save?
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So I made a mistake of setting up my game with 3 damn starting NPRs and now I want to remove them since I figured out it doesn't affect my gameplay but probably does affect my performance badly and the game could run much faster without them clogging my cpu.
Heard it's not possible to do using spacemaster, anyone willing to share step by step db editing guide so that I don' wreck my save?
While it's possible to do this, there's no step-by-step way to do it, as you basically need to delete numerous entries in dozens of database tables.
You may be able to do this by setting the race to be a player race instead of an NPR and then deleting the race in SM, though. I'm not sure how to do the first bit in-game, but it shouldn't be too hard to do with a DB edit.
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So I made a mistake of setting up my game with 3 damn starting NPRs and now I want to remove them since I figured out it doesn't affect my gameplay but probably does affect my performance badly and the game could run much faster without them clogging my cpu.
Heard it's not possible to do using spacemaster, anyone willing to share step by step db editing guide so that I don' wreck my save?
Keep a backup of the db and you can muck about to your heart's content without risk of breaking anything.
That said, one option to avoid DB edits is to add a SM race, give it max tech, SM explore until they find the NPRs, then spawn super ships and murder the poor suckers.
In other words, nukes are the solution to all of your problems. You can even SM out the radiation and dust afterwards!
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Start a new game. It is faster and easier and more convenient.
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I won't comment much on the two last replies (especially the last one, just please don't bother with such useless answers in the future), but as for the first one. . . How would I do that? This whole "do a DB edit" is the core of my question, I don't know how this database looks like, what is there etc etc, so how the hell am I supposed to figure out which "db edit" I'm supposed to do, not to mention how to perform it? Otherwise thanks, changing the npr to a player race seems like a good point if sm allows easy deletion of it, much simpler than "deleting dozens of entries".
Also, to clarify: of course I can do backup, my fear of screwing things up isn't about blowing my save up in obvious ways but rather small but significant errors that might resurface at some point after I'll invest more hours into my save.
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I won't comment much on the two last replies (especially the last one, just please don't bother with such useless answers in the future), but as for the first one. . . How would I do that? This whole "do a DB edit" is the core of my question, I don't know how this database looks like, what is there etc etc, so how the hell am I supposed to figure out which "db edit" I'm supposed to do, not to mention how to perform it? Otherwise thanks, changing the npr to a player race seems like a good point if sm allows easy deletion of it, much simpler than "deleting dozens of entries".
None of us know exactly how to accomplish what you are asking to do. But between a backup of the save file and the suggestion from nuclearslurpee, you have a path forward that can't harm anything.
You need a SQL database browser (I use dbbrowser, which is free and pretty user friendly.). You DON'T need any existing experience with SQL, as the database browser turns this into just poking around in a spreadsheet.
Open up the database and start looking at the different tables (basically, different sheets in the spreadsheet). Everything has fairly explicit names, and you may recognize entries from the games you have played which will help you figure out what does what.
There's no guide to the database, and I'm not sure Steve would be happy if anyone made one. But it's really not that intimidating!
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The most ironic thing is that as a programmer and IT student I learned some stuff about SQL, it's just I don't know anything about this particular db, nor schema whatsoever, let alone source code of the program that reads and modifies it. :P
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Steve doesn't even use most features of SQL, like foreign keys or relations between tables, so the spreadsheet comparison is apt. That said, there's too many tables and entries there that will pertain to a given NPR, it's not worth the effort to try and excise one through db editing.
SM has a "delete race" button in the race information screen for the own empire. Who knows what that one does, but you'll probably have to make the NPRs selectable as a normal race ingame to find out. That's only one or two flags in the DB.
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The most ironic thing is that as a programmer and IT student I learned some stuff about SQL, it's just I don't know anything about this particular db, nor schema whatsoever, let alone source code of the program that reads and modifies it. :P
I'm pretty much in the same position, however with SQLiteStudio I found it quite easy to just read column names and figure out what needs to change and what needs to stay the same.
If you are asking for a whole description of the schema or detailed instructions on how to use a DB reading problem I don't think you'll find much willing participants to spend time writing that post.
Just muck about in a backup of the save with your DB of choice.
A couple pointers that might help - FCT_AlienRace sounds like it might be useful, any of the FCT tables that have "Alien" in their name are probably related to an NPR. You can also search for "RaceID" and find the actual ID of the NPR race which could also help find other relevant tables.
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UPDATE: so far I've cleared FCT_GameLog since I've been told deleting the log boosts performance and identified the race ids of what appears to be my 3 unfortunate npr empires generated at game start and I'm 99% that's what I want to purge. Now wondering whether to just run some sqol queries on each table to identify the ids of their ships and whatnot and then delete all the references etc etc or try to find that magic switch that'll make them player-controlled so I could test whether it is indeed possible to then just remove them with SM.
UPDATE 2: wait a sec it appears to be a flag in the column titled "NPR" that is set to 0 under my race. Fingers crossed it works.
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I won't comment much on the two last replies (especially the last one, just please don't bother with such useless answers in the future), but as for the first one. . . How would I do that? This whole "do a DB edit" is the core of my question, I don't know how this database looks like, what is there etc etc, so how the hell am I supposed to figure out which "db edit" I'm supposed to do, not to mention how to perform it? Otherwise thanks, changing the npr to a player race seems like a good point if sm allows easy deletion of it, much simpler than "deleting dozens of entries".
Also, to clarify: of course I can do backup, my fear of screwing things up isn't about blowing my save up in obvious ways but rather small but significant errors that might resurface at some point after I'll invest more hours into my save.
Disclaimer: I have never done this before and make no guarantee that it will work, but I see no reason why it would not after poking around in the DB to figure it out.
Open the Aurora DB with DB Browser or any other SQL tool of your choice. Find the table "FCT_Race". Scroll to find the row with the race you want to get rid of (if you're not sure which this is you'd have to muck about in some other tables and cross-reference with your racial intelligence in-game; in this case, you just want to blanket-delete the non-spoiler NPRs so it should not be a problem). In the column "NPR" change the value '1' to '0'.
This should allow you to select that race in-game from any of the racial drop-downs. In-game, select that race in the Race window and click the Delete Race button (you might need SM Mode active for this).
DO NOT try to delete the race in the SQL editor, as this will break references to that race in any other tables (ships, fleets, research, colonies...) and probably break your save. Delete the race in-game so it will be handled correctly.
Be careful not to edit or delete the Precursors, Invaders, or any Swarm races (plus Rakhas in 1.13+ once they are fixed) as these races must be present in the table or else you will break the spoiler races.
If it is possible to set a race as a player race in-game, I do not know how. I do know that it is not possible to set a player race as an NPR in-game due to AI problems, but the reverse is supposedly possible. In any case, the DB solution does (or should) exist.
EDIT:
A couple pointers that might help - FCT_AlienRace sounds like it might be useful, any of the FCT tables that have "Alien" in their name are probably related to an NPR. You can also search for "RaceID" and find the actual ID of the NPR race which could also help find other relevant tables.
The "FCT_Alien..." tables usually are related to intel data, i.e. information each race has about other races. The "Alien" in the name refers to the fact that the data is about one race's knowledge of another.
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AAAAAND theeere we go, all three racess accessible in-game, all three races deleted. They discovered A LOT of systems and had a LOT of colonies even though their populations were only a few bilions. . . Honestly I wish I could keep them in my game, deleting them caused a sad feeling of missed content, but it had to be done for the sake of performance. . . I hope I'll feel that thrill once more when I'll discover some generated nprs or precusors, swarm or invaders or whatever.
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AAAAAND theeere we go, all three racess accessible in-game, all three races deleted. They discovered A LOT of systems and had a LOT of colonies even though their populations were only a few bilions. . . Honestly I wish I could keep them in my game, deleting them caused a sad feeling of missed content, but it had to be done for the sake of performance. . . I hope I'll feel that thrill once more when I'll discover some generated nprs or precusors, swarm or invaders or whatever.
I'd bet you could probably get good performance out of a single NPR if you wanted to leave them in for a more "alive" galaxy. A lot of the NPR performance slowdown comes from the interactions between them - not only combat but also sensor detection when they are in the same system together. Might be worth trying sometime.
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Regarding database bloat and performance.
In your favorite sqlite manager (I use Valentina Studio), use the PRAGMA VACUUM command. It will compress all of the empty free space out of the database making it more manageable. Now if Steve were to put a command like that in the Aurora interface, that'd be nice :D
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I recommend you all use this method to get rid of NPRs that have been conquered and effectively no longer exist on the game space.
Getting rid of a single NPR shrunk my save file by 20-25MB.
Part of it might be all the escape routes that the AI plans for its fleets. There were more waypoints than I can count that were just filling up the tactical map.
The only unfortunate thing is that you will lose their intel screen.
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I won't comment much on the two last replies (especially the last one, just please don't bother with such useless answers in the future)
You admitted yourself that you have no idea what you're doing and I'd bet that you spent more time asking questions and figuring it out than you would have spent setting up a new game. There's also the possibility that something small is messed up that will end up haunting your game 50 years later. It has happened to a lot of us, even without DB editing. My response was the safest and easiest thing to do, not a useless / asshole answer you think it was.
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You admitted yourself that you have no idea what you're doing and I'd bet that you spent more time asking questions and figuring it out than you would have spent setting up a new game. There's also the possibility that something small is messed up that will end up haunting your game 50 years later. It has happened to a lot of us, even without DB editing. My response was the safest and easiest thing to do, not a useless / asshole answer you think it was.
Yes, I agree. I personally wouldn't try deleting a race from the DB (and I know the DB fairly well). Even Delete Race in the UI is really only intended for correcting mistakes in race creation, rather than letting a campaign run for many years and then deleting a race. I think I have covered everything, but its a rare situation and therefore not properly tested. You may find weird bugs, especially when the race was created as an NPR. You can't make a race a normal Player Race by simply flipping the NPR flag in the DB (although you can make it visible that way). That's why that is not a game option.
Generally speaking, trying to make the game do something that the UI doesn't allow is a bad idea, unless you really know what you are doing. Starting again is a much safer option.
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"Starting again is a much safer option"
Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope and once again nope. If that was an option this post wouldn't exist so please stop, I'm tired from all this "advice" that is anything but helpful, why every internet forum has to be like this?. . .
Back to the topic, well, I flipped the flag for Nprs and then used delete race button in game. Performance boost was huge, sure, I got a few db errors next time I opened the game, but to be fair I had some errors popping up at random points long before this for apparently no reason at all, I got used to it, nothing seems to be affected by this change so far except my performance skyrocketed.
What could happen in the worst case? My save will blow up at some point, but that's it, so after investing a few dozen hours into it I feel like continuing and starting over only if save-corrupting bug will destroy my current game rather than just giving up and going through all of this once again.
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"Starting again is a much safer option"
Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope and once again nope. If that was an option this post wouldn't exist so please stop, I'm tired from all this "advice" that is anything but helpful, why every internet forum has to be like this?. . .
Back to the topic, well, I flipped the flag for Nprs and then used delete race button in game. Performance boost was huge, sure, I got a few db errors next time I opened the game, but to be fair I had some errors popping up at random points long before this for apparently no reason at all, I got used to it, nothing seems to be affected by this change so far except my performance skyrocketed.
What could happen in the worst case? My save will blow up at some point, but that's it, so after investing a few dozen hours into it I feel like continuing and starting over only if save-corrupting bug will destroy my current game rather than just giving up and going through all of this once again.
People are trying to give you genuine advice, based on years of experience playing the game, and this is probably the most helpful forum on the internet. Any bug caused by what you did is unlikely to be a nice and obvious save blow-up, but rather something in the background that screws up the AI. A few dozen hours in this game is nothing. You could quite easily have a few hundred hours and realise all that effort was wasted because the AI wasn't working properly anyway. That is the situation that people are trying to advise against. Maybe performance is great because nothing is happening.
By all means ignore the advice and learn by experience, but don't criticize people who have been playing for a decade or more and are genuinely trying to help you avoid wasting a lot of time.
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"Starting again is a much safer option"
Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope and once again nope. If that was an option this post wouldn't exist so please stop, I'm tired from all this "advice" that is anything but helpful, why every internet forum has to be like this?. . .
My man, if you ask a question and you don't like the answer then there isn't much every internet forum can do for you.
You can google "Flat Earth" the sh*t out of internet but if you think that Earth is Flat you will keep avoid all the "advices" on the Earth being a sphere.
Fundamentally, regardless this being your post, it will be read by other people forever so it's important that they know how things truly are.
In this case, multiple people, but most importantly the developer of the game himself, have said starting again is a much safer option, so gues what? Starting again is a much safer option.
To do it or not is up to you, but at least we have records that nobody here has sanctioned tempering with the DB being without consequences.
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"Starting again is a much safer option"
Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope and once again nope. If that was an option this post wouldn't exist so please stop, I'm tired from all this "advice" that is anything but helpful, why every internet forum has to be like this?. . .
I think you're looking at this all wrong and thinking people are just "trying" to be unhelpful. Consider it from this viewpoint. Someone comes up and asks a group of people "how do I grab that red hot piece of metal with my bare hands and move it to that shelf?".
One person says "Soak your hands in water right before, and if you grab it with a light touch and move very quickly, you can get it to the shelf before it burns the flesh from your bones. " Literally everyone else says "Don't do it, it's extremely dangerous and while there is some kind of slim chance everything works out ok, you're much more likely to hurt yourself badly. "
The people telling you not to do it are not being unhelpful. They're offering you sound advice for your own good. Messing with the Aurora DB is a dangerous undertaking. You might have a catastrophic issue that renders your game ruined immediately. Even more likely you introduce some kind of insidious bug into the game that doesn't show up for 50 hours of gameplay before you suddenly realize your entire game is ruined.
If your will to play was destroyed because you might have lost a few play sessions worth of time starting over with less NPRs, imagine your reaction a month from now when you realize your entire game is ruined because you fiddled around in the DB.
That's not hyperbole, it's why the guy who literally makes the game advises NOT doing it.
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To briefly sum up why I hate "advice" like that in this particular case and why the very existence of this post contradicts me ever willing to start a new game for this reason thus rendering saying "start a new game" pointless:
1) If I tinker with DB, I have some chance of not being able to play my save anymore and 100% - some chance of salvaging performance and being able to play further on that save.
2) If I start a new game, the chance of not being able to play my save anymore raises to 100%.
My goal is to still play on that save. If it was different, I would create a new game instead of this post. So which option should I pick up? 1), that gives me a positive chance of achieving my goal, or 2), where the chance of achieving my goal is precisely 0%?
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This is a pointless discussion, you got what you wanted, everyone should let it rest
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I'd bet that you spent more time asking questions and figuring it out than you would have spent setting up a new game
And you'd be correct, but you forgot that I spent way less time asking questions and figuring it out than I would playing the new game to get to the point I'm now in.
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I'd bet that you spent more time asking questions and figuring it out than you would have spent setting up a new game
And you'd be correct, but you forgot that I spent way less time asking questions and figuring it out than I would playing the new game to get to the point I'm now in.
Restarting is a part of the Aurora experience. I'm sure veterans on the forum have abandoned quite a few saves with hundreds of hours. Like Steve mentioned earlier, you may or may not encounter some serious errors that make advancing time impossible after messing with the DB.
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To briefly sum up why I hate "advice" like that in this particular case and why the very existence of this post contradicts me ever willing to start a new game for this reason thus rendering saying "start a new game" pointless:
1) If I tinker with DB, I have some chance of not being able to play my save anymore and 100% - some chance of salvaging performance and being able to play further on that save.
2) If I start a new game, the chance of not being able to play my save anymore raises to 100%.
My goal is to still play on that save. If it was different, I would create a new game instead of this post. So which option should I pick up? 1), that gives me a positive chance of achieving my goal, or 2), where the chance of achieving my goal is precisely 0%?
I'll give this one last go and then, as someone suggested, I will give up :)
You actually have 3 choices and you don't know if you are choosing 1 or 2.
- Tinker with DB without understanding it and continue to play normally with no obvious or hidden bugs (very unlikely).
- Tinker with DB, cause a bug that screws up the AI so the game isn't working properly, but from your perspective you appear to continue to play normally. Unfortunately, you are are wasting your time because you aren't actually playing the game - it just seems like it. This has happened to me and I didn't realise until I wasted a LOT of time.
- Accept that you aren't happy with the current game and restart (which we all do - including me), in which case you can be confident that your future time will not be wasted
The premise of your question seems to include the assumption that 2 would never happen. If you had more information regarding the probability of option 2, you might choose differently.
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No I will not choose 3 because I have only so much times for games and I'm yet to see combat although my fleet is well under development so I'd at least
have some battles autoresolved fight some battles, but that's not why I'm writing this reply.
The point of this reply is: Could you share what kind of problem did you run into that wasted you "A LOT" time and how did you find out?
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No I will not choose 3 because I have only so much times for games and I'm yet to see combat although my fleet is well under development so I'd at least have some battles autoresolved fight some battles, but that's not why I'm writing this reply.
The point of this reply is: Could you share what kind of problem did you run into that wasted you "A LOT" time and how did you find out?
There have been a few :).
The most recent was when I caused a problem with NPR capacitor tech (by altering the DB), so they all had much lower tech in capacitors than weapons. I fought against missile-armed ships for a while and only realized something was odd when I was fighting against STO and they were taking a long time to recharge . Finally I peeked at the NPR and realized the problem. Every NPR design was faulty. I could have tried to fix it by altering the database, but I knew that would cause even more problems so I restarted and recreated the game. I lost a couple of weeks, but it could have been worse. In your situation as a new player you may not have even noticed the odd STO recharge time.
The issue isn't that specific problem though as it is not likely to happen again (and was caused by me not thinking something through). The issue is that Aurora can be screwed up and you won't even know about it until a long time later, when you have invested far more effort than you already have. This normally happens when you make alterations to the DB that the game isn't intended to support.
You might get lucky in this instance and everything will be fine, or you might throw good time after bad. You really do seem keen to plough ahead though, so I can only say good luck.
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Well, dB editing was a point of no return so I deleted another 3 aliens spanning across dozens of stars after my performance started clogging up again (yes I was that stupid that on top of starting with 3 NPR's I ticked the boxes for Nprs to generate ancients and a positive chance of them generating another npr upon system discovery). Turns out CPU really hates when you set up a game with "alive, organic universe".
Since I'm speaking with the dev might I at this point also ask what are your plans of dealing with aurora performance/how does it look for you and what pc you play on?
My observation is that the game runs super smooth as long as you're alone out there, but once you're not then all the performance can quickly get to unplayed rates.
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Well, dB editing was a point of no return so I deleted another 3 aliens spanning across dozens of stars after my performance started clogging up again (yes I was that stupid that on top of starting with 3 NPR's I ticked the boxes for Nprs to generate ancients and a positive chance of them generating another npr upon system discovery). Turns out CPU really hates when you set up a game with "alive, organic universe".
Since I'm speaking with the dev might I at this point also ask what are your plans of dealing with aurora performance/how does it look for you and what pc you play on?
My observation is that the game runs super smooth as long as you're alone out there, but once you're not then all the performance can quickly get to unplayed rates.
The performance improvement from VB6 to C# although massive, is certainly inadequate when NPRs get involved. I've read that there were plans for 64-bit and multithreading to eventually make its way into aurora but I'll let Steve give the precise answer for that.
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Since I'm speaking with the dev might I at this point also ask what are your plans of dealing with aurora performance/how does it look for you and what pc you play on?
My observation is that the game runs super smooth as long as you're alone out there, but once you're not then all the performance can quickly get to unplayed rates.
I am currently playing with 5 NPRs and plenty of combat and it is running fine with sub-second turns, so I personally am very happy with the performance. The improvement in performance vs VB6 is huge, so any VB6 players are probably happy, but it depends on your perspective. If you want instant turns, then this isn't the game for you.
I have no plans to add multi-threading. I've addressed that many times in the past and the main issue is that the areas that are slowest cannot be run concurrently. Its a lot of effort for minimal gain and adds huge scope for hard to find bugs. There are plenty of past posts on this so I don't want to rehash it again. Based on tests, 32 bit runs slightly faster than 64 bit, so while I can compile it right now in 64 bit, I don't see the benefit.
This is a hobby that occupies a portion of my limited free time, not a professional game. I am not going to spend that time squeezing a few percent in terms of performance, as I would not find that interesting (and if it isn't interesting, it generally doesn't get coded). I would rather add new features or play the game. If the game doesn't provide the required level of instant gratification, then I completely understand if you prefer to move on to something faster. Aurora is definitely not for everyone (or even for most people).
My current PC is (appropriately) an Alienware Aurora.
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I have no plans to add multi-threading. I've addressed that many times in the past and the main issue is that the areas that are slowest cannot be run concurrently. Its a lot of effort for minimal gain and adds huge scope for hard to find bugs. There are plenty of past posts on this so I don't want to rehash it again. Based on tests, 32 bit runs slightly faster than 64 bit, so while I can compile it right now in 64 bit, I don't see the benefit.
I'm legitimately curious - what methods do you use to compare the performance of 64-bit aurora to 32-bit?
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I believe wet finger is enough. Steve has played dozen of games in VB6 and a lot in C#. :)
I'm playing with 14 NPR (8 Earth nations blocks and 6 NPR within 10 LY) and this is fine. Not super fast, but fast enough.
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I have no plans to add multi-threading. I've addressed that many times in the past and the main issue is that the areas that are slowest cannot be run concurrently. Its a lot of effort for minimal gain and adds huge scope for hard to find bugs. There are plenty of past posts on this so I don't want to rehash it again. Based on tests, 32 bit runs slightly faster than 64 bit, so while I can compile it right now in 64 bit, I don't see the benefit.
I'm legitimately curious - what methods do you use to compare the performance of 64-bit aurora to 32-bit?
I have an internal time variable in the sequence of play that checks the beginning and end of each increment in real time. I compiled the code in both 32 and 64 and tried both. I think it is because 64bit is superior when you use lots of memory, but if that is not a factor it has a slightly larger overhead.
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May I have a suggestion that'd potentially both greatly improve performance when nprs are involved and lessened the amount of work you have to do?
The tl;dr: would be: cut out the simulation that is not needed.
This game already has auto detection without player presence. Why not move further? Cut alien battles out completely - instead, if two hostile fleets are in the system, just compare their stats and use some very simplistic, stupid algorithm to determine winner and remove ships accordingly rather than have the player waste time for the battle that has no effect on gameplay extend "loading screens". Don't care whether the result will accurately represent what would happen in a particular battle, the player won't be able to tell the difference.
And while we're at it, why simulate npr economy and expansion properly as well? Instead of it making colonies, mining, building, researching etc etc make it just spawn ships and ground forces and teleport them around based on criteria like minerals in the system etc etc so more minerals means more ships get spawned etc etc. Then generate all the remaining infrastructure only when needed, so mineral stockpiles and infrastructure built only when player conquers a planet, tracking stations only when player discovers the system (the only infrastructure that is needed before player conquest since it affects combat), simulate proper fleet movement only if player in the system (could make a jump delay for nprs based on their speed or something so that it can't immediately arrive in player system from neigbouring star as this would actually affect gameplay when evacuating your forces, for example, but that's it).
Cutting out all that complex simulation should make the game run faster since it'll have far less things to process in case of nprs without any impact on gameplay since the player doesn't know what's going on in npr systems unless the player is in them.
For players it hopefully means better performance. And even if you don't care since I know you make it for yourself basically etc etc, for you it means far less work on AI and less AI-related bugs.
P.S. Why do you log all the events into FCT_GameLog table even if they can't be accessed in-game anymore due to limits set for max events? Heard log in the db impacts the performance, so why not clear them so the table stays small rather than forcing me to periodically run cleanups? Also, why log npr events at all?
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Also, why log npr events at all?
That would pretty much get rid of the only clue we have when things go south and get stuck into 5 seconds intervals or such. So this will be a no for me.
I won't comment on the rest of the post because it is obvious that you just need a bit more experience with the game and haven't fully grasped the basic notions around it; which is understandable, I am knocking my head around it for more than 10 years and some things I still cannot master yet and when I finally do, Steve changes them.
;D ;D ;D ;D
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P.S. Why do you log all the events into FCT_GameLog table even if they can't be accessed in-game anymore due to limits set for max events? Heard log in the db impacts the performance, so why not clear them so the table stays small rather than forcing me to periodically run cleanups? Also, why log npr events at all?
Although it would be nice the cleanups are really easy to do. I don't mind having to vaccum the DB after every play session.
Literally do this:
DELETE FROM FTC_GameLog
WHERE GameID = "YourGameID";
This will completely empty the Gamelogs from your game, hell you could just have the condition be 1=1 and completely flush the table and then just run vacuum on the DB. Takes less than 2 seconds.
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As if I didn't know how to do it. It's just a matter of the fact that I wait till the performance drops, then have to open dB (alternatively could make it my habit to do so before each session, but then there's the problem of the last events from where I stopped being there to refresh my memory), run the SQL, close dB and reopen game. It's just inconvenient. If the game itself would keep the log clean by removing those events that can't be accessed due to max event setting and not log nprs events at all, then that's a different story.
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May I have a suggestion that'd potentially both greatly improve performance when nprs are involved and lessened the amount of work you have to do?
The tl;dr: would be: cut out the simulation that is not needed.
This game already has auto detection without player presence. Why not move further? Cut alien battles out completely - instead, if two hostile fleets are in the system, just compare their stats and use some very simplistic, stupid algorithm to determine winner and remove ships accordingly rather than have the player waste time for the battle that has no effect on gameplay extend "loading screens". Don't care whether the result will accurately represent what would happen in a particular battle, the player won't be able to tell the difference.
And while we're at it, why simulate npr economy and expansion properly as well? Instead of it making colonies, mining, building, researching etc etc make it just spawn ships and ground forces and teleport them around based on criteria like minerals in the system etc etc so more minerals means more ships get spawned etc etc. Then generate all the remaining infrastructure only when needed, so mineral stockpiles and infrastructure built only when player conquers a planet, tracking stations only when player discovers the system (the only infrastructure that is needed before player conquest since it affects combat), simulate proper fleet movement only if player in the system (could make a jump delay for nprs based on their speed or something so that it can't immediately arrive in player system from neigbouring star as this would actually affect gameplay when evacuating your forces, for example, but that's it).
Cutting out all that complex simulation should make the game run faster since it'll have far less things to process in case of nprs without any impact on gameplay since the player doesn't know what's going on in npr systems unless the player is in them.
For players it hopefully means better performance. And even if you don't care since I know you make it for yourself basically etc etc, for you it means far less work on AI and less AI-related bugs.
P.S. Why do you log all the events into FCT_GameLog table even if they can't be accessed in-game anymore due to limits set for max events? Heard log in the db impacts the performance, so why not clear them so the table stays small rather than forcing me to periodically run cleanups? Also, why log npr events at all?
I think I will just quietly step away from the thread at this point :)
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As if I didn't know how to do it. It's just a matter of the fact that I wait till the performance drops, then have to open dB (alternatively could make it my habit to do so before each session, but then there's the problem of the last events from where I stopped being there to refresh my memory), run the SQL, close dB and reopen game. It's just inconvenient. If the game itself would keep the log clean by removing those events that can't be accessed due to max event setting and not log nprs events at all, then that's a different story.
I do it after every session and I don't have slowdowns due to logs. Usually its 2-5 MB every 4 hour session and I don't even wipe every log.
You mainly want to get rid of commander related events and NPR combat. I'll edit this post with the queries I use since that probably helps you more than the basic one I posted above.
If thats too inconvenient you can try playing a professionally made game, not that there's any out there like aurora but I don't know that else to tell you since you're the only one that seems to be having this much of a problem with the DB.
Here's the one that I use for commander related events and failed conditionals:
delete from FCT_Gamelog
where (EventType = 129 or
EventType = 90 or
EventType = 291 or
EventType = 98 or
EventType = 83 or
EventType = 54 or
EventType = 321 or
EventType = 290 or
EventType = 42 or
EventType = 296 or
EventType = 291 or
EventType = 292 or
EventType = 99 or
EventType = 256 or
EventType = 280 or
EventType = 257) and
GameID = 39;
Here's the one that handles NPR combat (includes ground combat since those logs are very spamy):
delete from FCT_GameLog
where (EventType = 15 or
EventType = 16 or
EventType = 28 or
EventType = 42 or
EventType = 54 or
EventType = 83 or
EventType = 90 or
EventType = 98 or
EventType = 99 or
EventType = 256 or
EventType = 257 or
EventType = 280 or
EventType = 285 or
EventType = 290 or
EventType = 291 or
EventType = 292 or
EventType = 296 or
EventType = 321)
and GameID = 39;
Remember GameID will be different for you but these queries will help you not delete important logs that you might want to keep to know what's been happening in your game recently and over time as you figure out the IDs of other events you can extend them for your own purposes.
You might feel inclined to ask for what each EventType actually stands for, don't bother. I will not catalogue the 300+ IDs for you, but feel free to poke in the DB and look up the various event names. If that proves too inconvenient....... well that's rough I guess.
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As if I didn't know how to do it. It's just a matter of the fact that I wait till the performance drops, then have to open dB (alternatively could make it my habit to do so before each session, but then there's the problem of the last events from where I stopped being there to refresh my memory), run the SQL, close dB and reopen game. It's just inconvenient. If the game itself would keep the log clean by removing those events that can't be accessed due to max event setting and not log nprs events at all, then that's a different story.
I do it after every session and I don't have slowdowns due to logs. Usually its 2-5 MB every 4 hour session and I don't even wipe every log.
You mainly want to get rid of commander related events and NPR combat. I'll edit this post with the queries I use since that probably helps you more than the basic one I posted above.
If thats too inconvenient you can try playing a professionally made game, not that there's any out there like aurora but I don't know that else to tell you since you're the only one that seems to be having this much of a problem with the DB.
The game log is trimmed during saves, but only for events older than five years. I've been reluctant to cut it back too far because people may want to check events from a year or two ago. If no one has any objections, I could reduce that to a year.
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As if I didn't know how to do it. It's just a matter of the fact that I wait till the performance drops, then have to open dB (alternatively could make it my habit to do so before each session, but then there's the problem of the last events from where I stopped being there to refresh my memory), run the SQL, close dB and reopen game. It's just inconvenient. If the game itself would keep the log clean by removing those events that can't be accessed due to max event setting and not log nprs events at all, then that's a different story.
I do it after every session and I don't have slowdowns due to logs. Usually its 2-5 MB every 4 hour session and I don't even wipe every log.
You mainly want to get rid of commander related events and NPR combat. I'll edit this post with the queries I use since that probably helps you more than the basic one I posted above.
If thats too inconvenient you can try playing a professionally made game, not that there's any out there like aurora but I don't know that else to tell you since you're the only one that seems to be having this much of a problem with the DB.
The game log is trimmed during saves, but only for events older than five years. I've been reluctant to cut it back too far because people may want to check events from a year or two ago. If no one has any objections, I could reduce that to a year.
If you consider changing that, maybe set it as an option where people can fill in how many years of log to keep?
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As if I didn't know how to do it. It's just a matter of the fact that I wait till the performance drops, then have to open dB (alternatively could make it my habit to do so before each session, but then there's the problem of the last events from where I stopped being there to refresh my memory), run the SQL, close dB and reopen game. It's just inconvenient. If the game itself would keep the log clean by removing those events that can't be accessed due to max event setting and not log nprs events at all, then that's a different story.
I do it after every session and I don't have slowdowns due to logs. Usually its 2-5 MB every 4 hour session and I don't even wipe every log.
You mainly want to get rid of commander related events and NPR combat. I'll edit this post with the queries I use since that probably helps you more than the basic one I posted above.
If thats too inconvenient you can try playing a professionally made game, not that there's any out there like aurora but I don't know that else to tell you since you're the only one that seems to be having this much of a problem with the DB.
The game log is trimmed during saves, but only for events older than five years. I've been reluctant to cut it back too far because people may want to check events from a year or two ago. If no one has any objections, I could reduce that to a year.
I don't know how many people will see this Steve as we have somewhat drifted off the topic of deleting NPRs, perhaps better suited as an open question on a separate thread.
The only thing I would ask of you with regards to save size management, when an NPR is fully conquered - it should be deleted (maybe keep their intel screen entry but I personally don't care too much if it also goes). I have done it and seen the absolute mess of "escape route" waypoints that are for some reason unused and undeleted.
This caused massive space savings when I deleted them (like 50mb).
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The only thing I would ask of you with regards to save size management, when an NPR is fully conquered - it should be deleted (maybe keep their intel screen entry but I personally don't care too much if it also goes). I have done it and seen the absolute mess of "escape route" waypoints that are for some reason unused and undeleted.
This caused massive space savings when I deleted them (like 50mb).
Escape route waypoints should have been deleted after three months, but I have just checked and it wasn't happening. Fixed for v1.13.
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it is obvious that you just need a bit more experience with the game and haven't fully grasped the basic notions around it
Well, actually looks like it is you who haven't fully grasped the basic notions around something, because how did you see a correlation between amount of experience with the game and npr-related (lack of) performance is beyond me. Whether I downloaded the game half a minute ago or played since the first public release, performance is performance and that'll always be equally important regardless of how much exp with the game I have.
I think I will just quietly step away from the thread at this point
Why? I made this reply you quoted precisely to hear your response on that matter. If you wish me to make other thread or something, just say so, I really want to hear your opinion on this. And if you don't want to tell it for whatever reason, I'd be really grateful if at least you stated so explicitly.
Thanks in advance.
you can try playing a professionally made game
I'd have explained what I think about such replies, but thankfully in the following statement
not that there's any out there like aurora
You've managed to explain this to yourself really well. So please don't bother with similar "suggestions" in the future.
You mainly want to get rid of commander related events and NPR combat. I'll edit this post with the queries I use since that probably helps you more than the basic one I posted above.
I see, you still missed my point completely. I know I can delete the logs and I know how to do it. I told you so already. I was talking about keeping log at bay rather than waiting for performance drop, seeing the performance drop and deleting it. And no, I don't want to get rid of commander events and npr combat. Once I open db to delete the log, after memorizing or taking actions accordingly to the last few events I cared about, there's no reason for me to do anything but delete it all, so I don't see a reason why I'd want to bother with more complex queries to gain less than I'll gain by just running delete from FCT_GameLog
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I think I will just quietly step away from the thread at this point
Why? I made this reply you quoted precisely to hear your response on that matter. If you wish me to make other thread or something, just say so, I really want to hear your opinion on this. And if you don't want to tell it for whatever reason, I'd be really grateful if at least you stated so explicitly.
For some reason, you seem fixated on performance and are prepared to make whatever gameplay sacrifices are required to improve it.
In the VB6 version of Aurora, players would literally wait minutes for a single turn to execute, usually reading a book or playing something else in-between turns. I've done that myself. In fact, I started coding the C# version while waiting for turns to execute in the VB6 version. From that you can draw two conclusions. Firstly, for any VB6 player the C# version is already lightning fast. Many of the early comments on C# were regarding the vast improvement in performance. The second conclusion is that Aurora players place a much higher premium on gameplay than performance or they would never have played VB6 at all (and VB6 had an active player base from 2004 to 2020).
Aurora is about detailed gameplay, fun roleplay and a huge time investment. It has never been about speed of play. One of the key points about Aurora is that the AI players (as much as possible) follow the same rules as the player. This isn't like a lot of games where the AI cheats to gain an advantage. The AI has the same sensors and gains tactical intelligence information in the same way as the player. It will only make decisions based on information that the player could also gather in the same situations. NPRs explore in the same way as players and have the same requirements for construction. The complex simulation isn't a problem to be solved - its the whole point of the game.
To get the most out of Aurora, it's best to adopt a more relaxed approach. Create a theme and backstory for your Empire and enjoy the journey and the story that unfolds. Don't worry about how fast you get there, because campaigns can last months or even years. If you are impatient or performance feels like a major issue, then Aurora is unlikely to be the ideal game for you. Which is fine BTW, because that will be true for the majority of people. Aurora is aimed at the relatively small group of gamers who want this type of slow-paced, in-depth game. Ultimately, this is a game I created to play myself. I share it on here so that other like-minded people can enjoy too and help me improve the game. However, the suggestions that get coded are usually new functions that appeal to me, or quick quality-of-life fixes.
Finally, this is the most helpful forum I have ever found on the internet. One reason for that is how well Erik runs the forums. Another is that Aurora seems to attract smart, helpful people. You have criticized people for trying to he helpful or having a different point of view, when they plainly had good intentions. You can have a different opinion and still respect the perspective of others.
The reason I said "I will just quietly step away from the thread at this point" was that we don't have a common framework for discussion. What is obviously important to you is not important to me, so it is unlikely we could find common ground. Therefore, the polite thing to do is accept your point of view is different and avoid an unproductive debate.
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I'll just say one final thing: this is why I love rimworld. It's also a game that has performance issues, requires a huge time investment and is all about complex simulation, however unlike this game or dwarf fortress, for example, it simulates only those parts that affect gameplay, so in rimworld you won't find your game suddenly slowing down because hostile factions have a firefight on the other side of the planet than your colony, for example.
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I'll just say one final thing: this is why I love rimworld. It's also a game that has performance issues, requires a huge time investment and is all about complex simulation, however unlike this game or dwarf fortress, for example, it simulates only those parts that affect gameplay, so in rimworld you won't find your game suddenly slowing down because hostile factions have a firefight on the other side of the planet than your colony, for example.
Depends on your definition of 'affects gameplay'. If your opponent is playing realistically the whole time, then it will influence the overall situation when you eventually meet that opponent. I haven't played Rimworld, but I have heard very positive things about it and the steam reviews are excellent. If that is more to your taste, then I suggest playing Rimworld rather than becoming frustrated with Aurora because it isn't the game you want.
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then it will influence the overall situation when you eventually meet that opponent.
As much as it'll sound ironically to you, I agree. The thing is, the player can't tell the difference. You warp into a system, you see a bunch of colonies and a bunch of ships. How do you know if they just spawned (in case you encounter generated npr) or are a product of complex simulation? (pre-existing npr)
I know you won't agree etc etc, just want to clarify it for the sake of understanding each other's point properly. You could've as well make the AI according to my suggestion and blatantly lie that it follows "the same rules of complex simulations." Players would believe you because the only way to uncover the truth would be to reverse-engineer the game. (with this I assume the proper simulation of ships would kick in when the player is in the system and so on and so forth, so the AI would "cheat" only without player presence in a given system).
I suggest playing Rimworld rather than becoming frustrated with Aurora because it isn't the game you want.
et tu, Brute, contra me? :'( You think this thread would even exist if that was the possibility? This suggestion would be only valid if Rimworld was an "auroralike", but it's not. I want to play the game like aurora, which doesn't leave me with any choice at all. ;)
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then it will influence the overall situation when you eventually meet that opponent.
As much as it'll sound ironically to you, I agree. The thing is, the player can't tell the difference. You warp into a system, you see a bunch of colonies and a bunch of ships. How do you know if they just spawned (in case you encounter generated npr) or are a product of complex simulation? (pre-existing npr)
I know you won't agree etc etc, just want to clarify it for the sake of understanding each other's point properly. You could've as well make the AI according to my suggestion and blatantly lie that it follows "the same rules of complex simulations." Players would believe you because the only way to uncover the truth would be to reverse-engineer the game. (with this I assume the proper simulation of ships would kick in when the player is in the system and so on and so forth, so the AI would "cheat" only without player presence in a given system).
The point is that *I* would know. I'm building the game primarily for myself and I want the NPRs to be realistic. I want life to continue in the galaxy, even if I am not watching everything happen. When I come across a wreck, I know there was a battle between two alien forces. I don't know when, or if they are still in the system, or what the fight was about, or how powerful they might be but suddenly I am imagining the worst and trying to decide what to do and how to deploy forces. The wreck is a sign that something is happening beyond my sight, but has a huge influence on my reactions. What I don't want to think is - oh, there is a randomly generated wreck. Nothing to worry about.
Or I might detect an alien freighter that hasn't seen me. Why is that freighter here and what was it doing in the system? What is carrying. Are there alien colonies here? Maybe I can trail it and find out where it is going and why? Or should I pull back and call up reinforcements? The aliens going about their business in the background has now presented me with meaningful choices.
I know you may simply want aliens thrown in your way to fight, but that isn't the design philosophy of the game. There has to be a story, not just a battle.
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There has to be a story, not just a battle.
Don't take it too personally, but I see a great irony in that sentence given how every single npr is the same in terms of they share the same tech tree, same buildings, same ship components and they don't even have a single lore-related word associated with them anywhere in the game, yet on the military side of things everything is so detailed to the point you design your own missiles.
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There has to be a story, not just a battle.
Don't take it too personally, but I see a great irony in that sentence given how every single npr is the same in terms of they share the same tech tree, same buildings, same ship components and they don't even have a single lore-related word associated with them anywhere in the game, yet on the military side of things everything is so detailed to the point you design your own missiles.
Except of course the AI races don't share the same tech tree or ship components. They can be radically different in some cases :)
Also, the lore is not in the NPRs. It's in your head. This is a game with minimal graphics and a lot of detail and events, so you use your imagination to build a story. Maybe play the game a while (longer than a few days) and read some AARs before developing strong opinions.
I suspect you will simply find Aurora frustrating and I am plainly not going to affect the view you have held since the start of the thread, so I will bow out at this point.
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Maybe play the game a while (longer than a few days) and read some AARs before developing strong opinions.
How ironic... I play this game for a month now, not a few days, approaching roughly 70 hours or something and apart from "reading some AARs" I have my own posted on Aurora discord server which so far covers 150 in-game years so my opinions didn't came out of nowhere.
I'd have probably ended up this discussion rn, just had to clarify this seeing how quickly you came to false conclusions regarding my experience with the game so far.
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Maybe play the game a while (longer than a few days) and read some AARs before developing strong opinions.
How ironic... I play this game for a month now, not a few days, approaching roughly 70 hours or something and apart from "reading some AARs" I have my own posted on Aurora discord server which so far covers 150 in-game years so my opinions didn't came out of nowhere.
I'd have probably ended up this discussion rn, just had to clarify this seeing how quickly you came to false conclusions regarding my experience with the game so far.
You just have to respect that this is Steve's game that he happens to be glad to share with the community generously. If he likes a suggestion, he will include it in the game, and on the other hand, he has all the rights to reject the ideas that he doesn't like.
70 hours isn't really something that can be bragged about in terms of Aurora playtime :)
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I am just gonna throw my two pence in here, at this point you guys need to just stop and if I was really active id lock this thread because all thats happening is arguing for the sake of it as no ones reaching common ground or coming to an understanding.
I also want to comment that as someone who has played aurora and made tutorials and plenty of other stuff on it since C# released, I dont even consider myself to have plenty of "experience" with the game because thats how indepth it is, so i find it absurd to go around and throw out numbers of playtime and things trying to say i have x amount of experience or not.
Because I really dont care about whos right or wrong I will also say in stormtroopers defense, that you shouldnt devalue someones opinion because of their perceived lack of experience purely, but you can devalue their opinion based on the actions they take.
At the end of the day, yall need to calm it, realise this is not productive at this point and agree to disagree as civilised human beings.
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Good idea @SpaceMarine :)