Author Topic: Quasar4x - An Aurora4x VB6 clone  (Read 161834 times)

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Offline TMaekler

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Re: Quasar4x - An Aurora4x VB6 clone
« Reply #465 on: September 13, 2021, 04:06:10 PM »
Could you do the coloring of events also on the system view?
 

Offline Kyle (OP)

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Re: Quasar4x - An Aurora4x VB6 clone
« Reply #466 on: September 14, 2021, 12:38:04 AM »
I was quite happy with the civilian shipping. It really seems to work - so I began to use it more and more. Now it seems to got stuck. Are there any rules I have to be aware of so I don't mess up the civilian shipping?

The only 'gotcha' I can think of is if the amount of trade goods you need to transfer is too small, civilians wont bother picking them up.  They only do pickups that will completely fill their cargo/colonist space.  This includes trade-generated infrastructure and colonists as well. 

If you don't think that's the issue, post the save file in the bug thread and I'll take a look when I can.
I have attached the DB. It contains the SP Game with the civilian transport issue - though it only contains one transfer job. I had deleted all the others to see if that one gets done - but it doesn't. The Source planet is Snowden, target planet is Krügener.

It also contains the MP Game which has the other issue of not being able to modify the atmosphere.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T38uRG6iwWrGgB98wdfSFMlGnIjt6Mfz/view?usp=sharing

Try the MP Game again with v167, there was actually a really bad bug introduced in v166 where populations weren't showing on the F2 window for any race other than race id 137.  I hardcoded that for testing and forgot to take it out. 

Im currently working on a really large rewrite of pathing-related code into C++ for a performance boost, so I'm not able to make any other updates right now. The rewrite is done I'm just being really careful and making sure every line out of thousands of lines of code is working properly, so it will still be awhile.
 

Offline TMaekler

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Re: Quasar4x - An Aurora4x VB6 clone
« Reply #467 on: September 14, 2021, 09:46:27 AM »
Try the MP Game again with v167, there was actually a really bad bug introduced in v166 where populations weren't showing on the F2 window for any race other than race id 137.  I hardcoded that for testing and forgot to take it out. 
Yo, works. Thanks  :)
 

Offline Kyle (OP)

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Re: Quasar4x - An Aurora4x VB6 clone
« Reply #468 on: September 15, 2021, 06:26:20 AM »
I was quite happy with the civilian shipping. It really seems to work - so I began to use it more and more. Now it seems to got stuck. Are there any rules I have to be aware of so I don't mess up the civilian shipping?

The only 'gotcha' I can think of is if the amount of trade goods you need to transfer is too small, civilians wont bother picking them up.  They only do pickups that will completely fill their cargo/colonist space.  This includes trade-generated infrastructure and colonists as well. 

If you don't think that's the issue, post the save file in the bug thread and I'll take a look when I can.
I have attached the DB. It contains the SP Game with the civilian transport issue - though it only contains one transfer job. I had deleted all the others to see if that one gets done - but it doesn't. The Source planet is Snowden, target planet is Krügener.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T38uRG6iwWrGgB98wdfSFMlGnIjt6Mfz/view?usp=sharing

For better or worse, it's working similar to VB6.  All your civs frieghters are busy with short-distance trades. Civilians freighters prioritize moving civilian-produced trade goods in the system they are in over government supply contracts that are in different systems.  There's more profit to be made in lots of short deliveries than a few long-distance deliveries.  More profit means more freighters built, which eventually leads to a surplus of freighters that *can* start fulfilling long distance orders.  You can speed up the process with subsidies.  I saw your bug report about the Subsidize button not working; it works on my pre-release build of version 168 with your save file, so if it still doesn't work maybe try again when in v168
 

Offline TMaekler

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Re: Quasar4x - An Aurora4x VB6 clone
« Reply #469 on: September 15, 2021, 11:11:21 AM »
For better or worse, it's working similar to VB6.  All your civs frieghters are busy with short-distance trades. Civilians freighters prioritize moving civilian-produced trade goods in the system they are in over government supply contracts that are in different systems.  There's more profit to be made in lots of short deliveries than a few long-distance deliveries.  More profit means more freighters built, which eventually leads to a surplus of freighters that *can* start fulfilling long distance orders.  You can speed up the process with subsidies.  I saw your bug report about the Subsidize button not working; it works on my pre-release build of version 168 with your save file, so if it still doesn't work maybe try again when in v168
Yeah in my yearly budged review I saw "subsidise" - so somehow some money got to them - or at least it went into the statistics. Is there a way that you can show something like "free civilian capacity" or list them as busy with civilian contracts? If I knew they were busy I might have guesses what is going on... . Also nice would be some kind of priority option for my transports which I could optionally add if I see a contract isn't done by them. What that option could do is increase the payment I offer them until they say: yeah, worth it ;-)
 

Offline TMaekler

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Re: Quasar4x - An Aurora4x VB6 clone
« Reply #470 on: September 17, 2021, 01:15:58 PM »
I would like to add a Lagrange Point to a Planet, but it needs X and Y coordinates and a heading - which I can't figure out how to manually calculate (or is there a SM function to add a Lagrange point to an object). How can I do this?
 

Offline trabber Shir

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Re: Quasar4x - An Aurora4x VB6 clone
« Reply #471 on: September 18, 2021, 07:15:36 AM »
How does the "Terraform Colony" default order work? Does it make a ship with a terraforming module terraform a colony it is orbiting with some sort of AI choosing the gasses to add and remove, or is it necessary for the terraforming module to work at all, or does it cause the taskgroup to fly to the closest colony with a terraforming action specified, or somethig else I am not thinking of at all?
 

Offline Kyle (OP)

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Re: Quasar4x - An Aurora4x VB6 clone
« Reply #472 on: September 18, 2021, 07:39:43 AM »
I would like to add a Lagrange Point to a Planet, but it needs X and Y coordinates and a heading - which I can't figure out how to manually calculate (or is there a SM function to add a Lagrange point to an object). How can I do this?

You can fill in 0 for X, Y, and Bearing.  They get recalculated and overwritten during orbital movement.


How does the "Terraform Colony" default order work? Does it make a ship with a terraforming module terraform a colony it is orbiting with some sort of AI choosing the gasses to add and remove, or is it necessary for the terraforming module to work at all, or does it cause the taskgroup to fly to the closest colony with a terraforming action specified, or somethig else I am not thinking of at all?

The fleet will move to the nearest colony with a non-zero population, a terraforming gas set to anything other than 'Terraforming Inactive', and a colony cost > 0 and <= 3.
 

Offline TMaekler

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Re: Quasar4x - An Aurora4x VB6 clone
« Reply #473 on: September 18, 2021, 11:41:03 AM »
Sometimes it would be helpful to see what fleets are in a system. Like with the System Map. You can right-click on a dot and perform several actions. Could you add a similar kind of right-click action for the Galactic Map? If you right-click on a ship symbol it opens a list of all fleets actually in that system and you can directly jump to the Task Force entry from there.
 

Offline TMaekler

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Re: Quasar4x - An Aurora4x VB6 clone
« Reply #474 on: September 18, 2021, 02:11:22 PM »
Is there a way to hide civilian ships in the Task Forces List (not the list directly but the target options like "Join Fleet" etc.)
 

Offline TMaekler

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Re: Quasar4x - An Aurora4x VB6 clone
« Reply #475 on: September 18, 2021, 04:05:49 PM »
Have you thought about implementing repair yards from C#? I just ran into a malfunctioning ship design of myself which has not have enough spare parts to be repaired in the first place due to having not the double amount of maintenance... yeah ;-). Sooooo, I am missing the repair in dockyard - function  ;D ;D
 

Offline TMaekler

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Re: Quasar4x - An Aurora4x VB6 clone
« Reply #476 on: September 19, 2021, 01:26:14 AM »
An idea: You can mark a ship design as a "Standard Design". This ship design is then available as a "base pattern" in all games in that DB. The idea is to not have to design the "same" ship classes over and over again (geo & grav explorers, transport ships, tankers, troop transports come into mind here), but rather create a new ship class in a new game and then fill that new design with an already existing "base pattern" from one of your earlier games.

Now, the problem here is "race tech". The copy routine can do three checks to circumvent this issue:
a) does the race in your actual game have a race tech with the same parameters as the race tech in the other game? If so exchange that tech against your actual game race tech
b) if no such race tech can be found, does your actual empire have all prerequisite technologies researched? If so generate a race tech with the same parameters
c) If no such technologies can be found offer a drop-down list of all actual race technologies from that category (for example engines, or lasers) and ask the player to exchange the missing tech with one that he already has researched in this game.
 

Offline Kyle (OP)

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Re: Quasar4x - An Aurora4x VB6 clone
« Reply #477 on: September 19, 2021, 07:00:22 AM »
Is there a way to hide civilian ships in the Task Forces List (not the list directly but the target options like "Join Fleet" etc.)

Do you mean the civilian Fuel Harvesters in the System Locations Available list on the Fleet Orders window?  (You can't join those fleets).  They are annoying me too, but it's the only way in the UI to buy fuel from civilians and I do occasionally buy from them.  The problem is I have no more room in the Display Options panel for checkboxes.   I never use the "Survey Locations" and "Exclude Surveyed" checkboxes and they take up two spaces I could use for better purposes such as this one, but.. but... the nostalgia!  the VB6 parity!  The one time 3 months from now I'll need to select a survey location!  For now I'm just putting up with it.
« Last Edit: September 19, 2021, 07:02:46 AM by Kyle »
 

Offline TMaekler

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Re: Quasar4x - An Aurora4x VB6 clone
« Reply #478 on: September 19, 2021, 07:03:41 AM »
How do you buy fuel this way from the civilians?!?  ??? :o
Edit: Ah, I see... nice feature  ;)
« Last Edit: September 19, 2021, 07:07:39 AM by TMaekler »
 

Offline Garfunkel

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Re: Quasar4x - An Aurora4x VB6 clone
« Reply #479 on: September 19, 2021, 07:05:38 AM »
How do you buy fuel this way from the civilians?!?  ??? :o
Give your TG the order "Refuel from Target" and they will drain the civilian harvesters, which automatically costs you some wealth.
 
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