Aurora 4x
VB6 Aurora => Aurora Suggestions => Topic started by: sneer on January 10, 2014, 03:08:16 AM
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one of my games
year 2110+
I have 4 shipping lines
1st is awfully rich with 50k on hand and has almost 200 ships
rest has stable finances with 20+ ships
total 260+ ships and potential for more or much more
I doubt I need so many
It certainly slows me down
how about check box for each shipping line with a number of ships they are max authorized ?
(when it is lower than actual no replacement ships are build for old ones )
p.s. If somebody could tell me how to use spacemaster to reduce them ...
my turns already are damn slow :(
p.p.s. or maybe even better to implement self detruct option to merchant vessels ?
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,6698.0.html
that would help avoiding such situations
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+1, giving shipping lines authorization to build more ships is a great idea how to control the clutter.
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I would like an auto regulation mechanic instead.
If a shipping line reach say around 50-100 ships they double the size of new ships commissioned instead. Perhaps make this number a bit random too for each company for flavor so you don't end up with 5 shipping lines with the same amount of ships.
They still keep actively building ships for their revenue after this number but will replace old smaller ones instead with new bigger ships. Eventually you could have shipping lines with massive 64x cargo hold vessels or even bigger.
This would mean that successful shipping lines will have much much larger ships instead of many ships slowing down the game. The game-play effects is that they can effectively haul the same amounts as if they had thousands of ships, but without slowing down the game!!!
(Also huge freighters are damn cool) :)
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(Also huge freighters are damn cool) :)
And make really big explosions when you^H^H^H the bad guy shoots them.
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You could thin their numbers down with tractor equipped ships, but if that's too much micro management, try dropping a few hundred thermal sensor equipped mines into your shipping lanes ^evil grin^
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It would be nice if in the civilian shipping line tab we could do something like putting a number amount per company for the amount of ships they are allowed to build. Kinda like the government granting them licenses to build them. I'm pretty sure that the government is currently trying to do something similar with granting them permission to do flights and missions now, at least to government places like the space station.
This way we could keep their number down to manageable levels and the government could have some control over those pesky civvies. Not sure how easy it is to code that though.
Great game either way though
-Five
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I have pretty much given up on civilian ships. In my second game I myself had four shipping lines, one of ~800 ships, the second 400, and the rest near 100, to which you must add the incountable numbers of two befriended npr races. Every 1 day intervall I clicked took the game nearly a minute to process, slowing all the gameplay to a terrible crawl.
Eventually I gave up and started a new game where I never invested in any shipping line again so that this madness never starts. Eventually one single ship gets started from your first shipping line nontheless (programed by the game I guess), but I blew that wretched thing up as soon as I saw the message. Since then it has been beautiful silence between the stars. I am in year 2135 now (much further than in the other game) with multiple colonies, handmade ressource supply-lines and many star systems discovered, and still a 5 day increment only takes less than 5 seconds to calculate. (also aided by that I instantly mobilized heavy invasion forces when I met my first npr race - "Exterminate them all in the name of the greater good performance!")
I would love to have the realism and immersion that civilian ships offer, and that you would have to worry about your civilian fleet as a considerable economy factor and such, but as it is now they are just not worth the trouble. On one hand they completly glue your game to the ground, and on the other they don't offer any vital advantage either. My economy works perfect without them - actually still overachieving for the bigger part of this game.
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The airtraffic falls under government management. I really think it is a good think in the game as well.
A simple box where one can give licences to the shipping lines to modify their size is perfect. It allows player to change things, balances the game and doesn't carry any extra cost :)
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So, I understand that civilians are responsible for a good part of the terrible slowdowns of the game? I did think that their number was rather excessive but, that's kind of bad. They are very useful in limiting your fuel usage/cargo needs, especially for moving large amounts of infrastructure, and that's particularly important with a conventional start.
Also, does gutting your own civilian sector help at all? I mean, even supposing you do keep them down.... won't the alien races create a million civilian ships anyway? Cause if they do then there's not much point in staying without civilian ships when every race near you do use them...
If civilians are one of the main sources of the slowdowns, then perhaps rather than keeping down your own civilian sector a different, general solution is needed, one that also influences the NPRs. Because only limiting yours civilians shipping lines to a set number with a checkbox does nothing for the ships the NPRs build.
I think a variant of what alex_brunius posted would be good. Perhaps a hard-cap on total civilian ships for each race based on number of populated colonies (Not colonies designated for other matters, like automated mining or fuel depots or such.) That, and when the limit is reached, the ships slowly start to get bigger (so you still have an increase in capacity).
Just a quick example, say, 10 ships for each inhabited colony under 1 billion people, + 5 ships every billion people (so your 5 billion earth gives you 30 maximum ships). Divided between cargo, colony and spaceliner in a roughly euqal amount (I don't know, 4 cargo 3 colony 3 spaceliner every 10 ships). This would keep the number down unless you colonize a hundred planets, AND it would also limits the NPRs, thus keeping down the civilian sector a great deal while still letting you use them for coloniziation/transport, especially considering the ships keep getting bigger.
P.S. This approach you can even rationalize/RP, by saying that there's no need for more ships due to trade (and more populated colonies generate more trade)
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By the way, is there any way to selectively remove some civilian ships? I mean, if I could target them, I could shoot down some of them specifically (say: all spaceliners, or only obsolete ships) with myh beam startships. But as far as I can see... there's no way to target them, so I have to use mines? I'd rather not use mines in my systems....
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There is a mechanic that allows shipping lines to scrap an old ship when a new one is constructed. The problem is that if all the civilian ships are currently on missions, none of them are scrapped. I need to add some code that flags a ship to be scrapped once it finishes its current mission. That would significantly reduce the number of ships.
I also like the idea of adding larger civilian ships in the later game to reduce the overall number.
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There is a mechanic that allows shipping lines to scrap their old ships. The problem is that if all the civilian ships are currently on missions, none of them are scrapped. I need to add some code that flags a ship to be scrapped once it finishes its current mission. That would significantly reduce the number of ships.
I also like the idea of adding larger civilian ships in the later game to reduce the overall number.
Actually from what I can see the ships are not scrapped even when a lot of them are doing nothing. In this game of mine, I have over 1250 civilian ships right now, and more than half are doing nothing... but the companies are still filthy rich (I get 18000 wealth a month by taxes on passengers lines alone), and they launch 2-4 new civilian ships ever 5 days....
I'd probably do some sort of "crowd control" right now if I could. But I can't think of a way, least using hundreds and hundreds of mines in my systems, which is rather... dunno... not good? :)
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The other alternative is with tractors but with over a thousand ships would take a bloody long time I imagine.
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how about 3 things
1st - box with number of authorized civilian ships
2nd - civilians running bigest possible designs
3rd button - recall all civilian back to earth and hold
it should not be work extensive for Steve and should solve any problem
and 4th
I would add "self destruct button" to each merchants somewhere in shipping line info just in case ...
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and 4th
I would add "self destruct button" to each merchants somewhere in shipping line info just in case ...
I would hate to be on that ship.
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3rd button - recall all civilian back to earth and hold
I would make that recall all civilians back to the capital instead of earth. While earth may be the start capital for the bulk of campaigns, it does not have to be it, and the capital can be changed to another colony. This also allows the game to use such an order on npr's if there is a reason to do so without having to change the coding at a later date.
Brian
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I would hate to be on that ship.
Alfapiomega! Finally I see you around. Now stop fooling around and get back to recording!(http://www.greensmilies.com/smile/smiley_emoticons_gotowork.gif)
So, I understand that civilians are responsible for a good part of the terrible slowdowns of the game?
Tested and veryfied.
If civilians are one of the main sources of the slowdowns, then perhaps rather than keeping down your own civilian sector a different, general solution is needed, one that also influences the NPRs. Because only limiting yours civilians shipping lines to a set number with a checkbox does nothing for the ships the NPRs build.
Yep, government control would do nothing about the main problem of the multiple other races, which is why (at least in the current version) you should hunt every alien ship down as fast as possible, because they may fly through jump points to discover new systems and unbeknownst to you could randomly spawn a new race somewhere, which is the start of an exponentially downwards spiraling performance loss as those start flying around too.
I forgot to mention that when I looked for how many races were actually in that second game of mine in the end, I found a large number of which I never heard before (I only ever saw two), which were discovered by the nprs or maybe the two imperiums I let the game generate alongside with me at the start (I never knew if they were part of those I discovered or not). So evidently the slowdown came from aliens mostly and the players governential ruling wouldn't change anything on that side. (not to mention all the secret fighting breaks that arise in addition to that from so much traffic :O)
I like your idea with some population dependant limit in that regard. Also the increase of freighter capacity is not only helpful but also makes sense. At least if I understand right that civilian craft never flies more than 4 jumps from its homeworld(?), then there would be some level on which ultimate saturation of tasks is reached (anything is answered and the grid stil is flexible to some degree), and capacity is the only concern left, which can be reached either by still more or just bigger ships. Considering the problems, bigger is better.
You forgot fuel harvesters in your calculation though [/nitpick]
There is a mechanic that allows shipping lines to scrap an old ship when a new one is constructed. The problem is that if all the civilian ships are currently on missions, none of them are scrapped. I need to add some code that flags a ship to be scrapped once it finishes its current mission. That would significantly reduce the number of ships.
I also like the idea of adding larger civilian ships in the later game to reduce the overall number.
That sounds great and promising already.
how about 3 things
1st - box with number of authorized civilian ships
2nd - civilians running bigest possible designs
3rd button - recall all civilian back to earth and hold
it should not be work extensive for Steve and should solve any problem
and 4th
I would add "self destruct button" to each merchants somewhere in shipping line info just in case ...
The problem is that that all would only work if it would influence other races too, which cannot be true for the 3rd eventually and 4th button (for spoilers) at least. Changes need to be deep rooted into the concept and treatment of civilian ships in general. Esoteric balancing adjustments from the player side can only do so much.
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So I think it might be a good idea to limit total number of systems to below that point where NPRs generated NPRs and civilians, start to cause slowdown, tell me , how many system were generated in that game at the point where the slowdown became impossible to manage, and how many NPRs were there? I might create a poll asking people's experience with slowdown, at what point it occurred, discuss how it can be managed etc. it would be very useful for the FAQ, then again if steve fixes civilians significantly in 6.40, it'll be rather redundant.
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I went into a old save of the second game again and have to correct myself: The total ships count of all four shipping lines together was actually 800+ on my side (seperating in 560-280-few-few), not the biggest already, so much fewer are needed for problems. Also, when I take the Precursors, Invaders, and the Star Swarm out, only 5 NPR races remain. Altogether they own a mere 232 civilian ships, which is nothing compared to mine, so in this game the slowdown must instead come prominently from the players side. This is likely so though, because I started the game with a difficulty modifier of 20% so the other races all fall back alot.(http://www.greensmilies.com/smile/smiley_emoticons_blush-reloaded7.gif) (I still had to learn many things since in my first game I lost pretty early to BUG-class bombardement missiles with only ever having had one real military vessel flying, and knowing nothing about many functions)
In this game I only owned 3 other systems, only one of which colonized for real, and the other two remote mining grounds, and all in 1-2 jumps range of Sol. Nothing against the wide spread expansion I manage in my third game right now and without problems.
I cannot name the point where the game became impossible to manage anymore though. It is like watching a plant growing. It happens unnoticable slowly every turn, and at some point you just look back and recognize - things have changed. I was in denial for quite a bit longer than it was good for me, not wanting to give up on the game I had already invested many hours in. At this end save I myself can see 86 systems, and when I switch to the only other selectable race (which is one which i am allied with) then I see 46 system, where some likely are discovered by me too. ..But there must be quite a bit more with the other 3 hidden races, so who knows.
One could make an experimental game though, where a good number of starting npr are present, and the empires all start with boosted population. One could cheatingly fund their shipping lines to start the sprawl as early as possible, so we have many civilians even when few systems are discovered, and then see how and when it really becomes a problem. Maybe define a line of 'unbearableness' that when a 1-day turn takes more than 20-seconds or 30 or so, the game is classified as broken, and the census about civilian ships and systems can be made.
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You have high expectations indeed. 30 seconds for a 1-day turn? That's ridiculously fast I'd say XD
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In the previous versions, I tailored civ ship size by really scaling in the cargo size such that they couldn't build more than a few. Millions of tons.
Since they design their own ships now (yes?) i was worried that my strategy would no longer work.
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At the moment when a shipping line builds a new ship it checks for ships that are more than 10 years old and are not currently carrying out orders. If it can find one, it is immediately scrapped. The problem is that civilian ships are rarely doing nothing.
In v6.40, when a shipping line builds a new ship it checks for ships that are more than 10 years old regardless of current orders. If it can find one, it is flagged for future scrapping and its default orders are removed. During the 5-day update any ships flagged for scrap and without orders are scrapped at that point. This should result in a lot more of the older ships being scrapped.
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At the moment when a shipping line builds a new ship it checks for ships that are more than 10 years old and are not currently carrying out orders. If it can find one, it is immediately scrapped. The problem is that civilian ships are rarely doing nothing.
In v6.40, when a shipping line builds a new ship it checks for ships that are more than 10 years old regardless of current orders. If it can find one, it is flagged for future scrapping and its default orders are removed. During the 5-day update any ships flagged for scrap and without orders are scrapped at that point. This should result in a lot more of the older ships being scrapped.
I am really happy about this change, but isn't 10 years a bit too much? How about making it 8 years or so? No sense in keeping obsolete ships, and I'd think that in 8 years there are bound to be improvements in the technology, so that civilian companies can make better designs.
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I've also added Huge Freighters and Huge Colony Ships, which have 5x the capacity of the Small versions. In addition, when choosing a Colony Ship or Freighter the Shipping Line will choose the largest vessel it can afford (after accounting for future dividends) rather than selecting randomly.
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I've also added Huge Freighters and Huge Colony Ships, which have 5x the capacity of the Small versions. In addition, when choosing a Colony Ship or Freighter the Shipping Line will choose the largest vessel it can afford (after accounting for future dividends) rather than selecting randomly.
Ok, this sounds a lot better. Let's hope that this stops the civilian ships madness. Plus, huge freighters are good, for when you need to move a lot of big things later in the game
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I'm sure this would have a significant reduction in civ shipping capacity, I'm not worried about slowdown much now if it really was civs and NPR civ shipping causing the main non-transient lag. Thank you steve, I hope all these new features and optimisations aren't taking you completely away from that awesome test campaign, I'm looking forward to seeing what's going on in that system, but I think it'll be awesome if you include that one in the patch like you usually do with test games.
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Alfapiomega! Finally I see you around. Now stop fooling around and get back to recording!(http://www.greensmilies.com/smile/smiley_emoticons_gotowork.gif)
I am all over the forum. Also currently have 12 episodes recorded and uploaded so they will go out after the Europa Barbarorum batch is published.
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Great. I watched your whole let's play subsequently on a second screen during my whole Aurora play experience so far.(kind of the complete Aurora media surround program nerd-out (http://www.greensmilies.com/smile/smiley_emoticons_verlegen.gif)) Now I am in the finishing phase of my third game, but just for nostalgic reasons I want to end it the same way the whole venture started.
..Just ...a couple...more ..hours.
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Another thing, Steve, that might help with actually making civilians more useful. Right now the priority of user-given civilian orders is very low. Civilians basically do whatever they want, and do not care much about your orders unless they just happen to be in orbit around the world where the order is.
Even though I have 8 shipping lines and close to 150 freighters now, I have an order for moving automated mines that has been waiting for 2 years, and not a single mine was moved yet. And this even though there are freighters in the system. Most of the freighters though are in the nearby system, cause I have 5 colonized planets there.
So, I'd like to request that either player-issued orders are prioritized, or that the player can prioritize them by paying more! Say that I pay double for the transports, of course the civvies would come and carry my stuff first!
Also, a question, I have 8 shipping lines (3 were born in the last 2 years) and I can't help but notice that things slowed down a LOT lately.
Could it be that the number of shipping lines is also an important fact in slowdowns? Aside from the total number of ships I mean. I say so because lately it takes about a minute to open up the shipping lines window, while before it did not though I had the same number of ships.
If so I assure you we can live with just one shipping line, for performance's sake....