Minaturization bug

a little bump for the attention.

Yes that would be an excellent thing to fix, especially since it would help the AI which loves minaturization to a fault right now. (i don't research past one that gives shrinker, and am mad when i steal the rest off the AI...)

Hey G, that is why I stopped spying... which research level actually becomes counter productive... I haven't figuered it out yet, I remember reading it somewhere, but I forgot.

What is that bug exactly? Not having a reminder about what is exactly this bug is a bit counter-productive.

Is that the one where at some point more minaturization you have, the larger the components become?

All I know is that more miniaturization = more engines on my constructors. I agree that the miniaturization issues really need to be fixed for weapons and armor, but with the absurd amounts of effort and micromanagement needed for a starbase, my opinion is that more miniaturization = always better constructors = always "teh win."

I HAVE tested this at various levels of miniaturization, just to check, incidentally. It's always good for constructors, at least up to the point where you're Yor with Supreme Mini and a single shrinker. (I haven't tried Yor with multiple shrinkers.)

Is that the one where at some point more minaturization you have, the larger the components become?

That's not a bug, just the way it is. Part of a component's size is based on the hull's total size, so miniturization only really benefits the part of a components size that is fixed.

The only real 'bug' is that due to rounding+sizemods working in perfect disharmony, you can sometimes end up with components growing by more than the hull's capacity did, meaning that some existing designs can become impossible to build (though I've not encountered this myself, I have heard reports of it).

Now, one can argue that sizemods should ignore miniturization and only be based on the base capacity of a hull, though that may swing things the other way and make miniturization too powerful--it'd need some testing to figure that out. And the rounding issues can be solved by simply multiplying all sizes by 10 or 100.

i beleive going past the one that gives shrinkers can be bad. I agree with DreadArchon, that for constructors they do still generally help.

The trick to getting around the bug is to not research the last 2 min techs.

And the devs have admitted that it is a bug, and also that it will be addressed in the 1.3 update.

Bump for the senile ones...

I did a quick experiemnt, and here's my results...

Playing as the Yor I took a cargo hull and filled it with Sensor IV's

None: 12 Sensors
Basic Min (+10): 13 Sensors
Enhanced Min (+15): 12 Sensors
Advanced Min (+15): 13 Sensors
Expert Min (+15): 15 Sensors
Ultimate Min (+20): 14 Sensors
Supreme Min (+25): 14 Sensors
HypShrink: 15 Sensors

So it does look like there is a problem since sometimes you're worse off after researching a new min tech. Why doesn't min just increase the space available in the ship, instead of increasing both the space and the size of the components?

didn't know which thread was better, so I posted this in both threads...

The min techs don't change the size of the components, the 'sizemod' of the component does that.

It is the combination of the increased size of the hull and the sizemod that weirds it out.

You could just try avoiding building too small ships or too many small components with high Minaturization. they are most affected by rounding errors.

the reason why components scale with the size its because they got a certain fixed size and a scaled size which add together to the total size. the only reason for this are balancing issues. (i.e. engines for larger hull need more space, for a reason)

Miniturization ratios (Yor)
Cargo Hull, Sensors I, Sensors IV
---------------------------------
Base (+25%) | 11.8%    |  8.8%
+10%        | 10.8%    |  8.1%
+15%        | 11.0% (+)|  8.5% (+)
+15%        | 11.1% (+)|  7.7%
+15%        | 10.1%    |  7.1%
+20%        | 10.0%    |  7.3% (+)

I don't have any serious issues with the last two miniaturization techs if my race has no added ability in that regard, and if I research all of the techs. I noticed at some points along the miniaturization branch, certain hull sizes favored others when it came to existing ship designs. While one design might find itself with a sudden onset of obesity, another might find itself with a few extra points to spend.

IMO, the two best ideas are to either (in a mod) remove the sizemod value altogether and rebalance the component sizes, or to use much larger numbers so that the errors have much less impact. Either way, the game probably won't play the same.

There is no problem with any particular miniturization tech as some have claimed. If you look at the table posted above, you can see that it's just a matter of when you get enough added size on the hull that the components grow in size (causing a sudden spike in what % of the hull the use in total, resulting in either no gain or a net loss of space).

The solution is to simply fix sizemods to calculate based on the base hull size, not the miniturized size. Doing this would solve the problem and make miniturization much more worthwhile across the board.

"The solution is to simply fix sizemods to calculate based on the base hull size, not the miniturized size. Doing this would solve the problem and make miniturization much more worthwhile across the board."

It's not something that's moddable, right? The fix would require coding time, if I'm reading your statement correctly. It sounds like a simple enough change. It actually sounds simple, not just perceived as "simple" to the gamer and an odious nightmare to the programmer. Sounds to me like one would just need to use a different variable in the equation, e.g. X instead of Z.

Has Stardock commented on such an approach?

Yes it would require a code change. I've talked with Cari about it but it's not on the list for 1.3 yet to my knowledge.

We were told a couple weeks ago by one of the devs that it would be fixed in 1.3.

It would be a godsend if it was changed to the hulls base size. Would make my modding attempts so much easier. I dislike the current setup so much that I've disabled the entire tech branch for minaturization and bonuses.

I have to say, the best min fix i have seen is with the invader mod, where you actually need a certain level of miniturization to get weapons and defenses. something like that would work well, and also what compnents dont change in size, i though they all did.

I see people fail to see my point.... including folks from Stardock...

I, and most other players, dont care if you designed something on purpose or its an oversight. What I do care about is having a well balanced game thats fun to play. If there are certain features that the vast majority of players regard as bad, I would think that the developer would try and balance things- for the sake of a better game.

The fixes are really not a big deal. Miniturization is, as the experienced users already said, easy to fix.
The Galactic Wonders are easy to balance. The Galactic Guide Book can stay. Just make it cheaper to build so someone can actualy build it early in the game to use it properly.

Now, do we all want a better game, or do we want to pretend the game is just fine...?

I'll post it again here...

OK. If I understand right miniaturization does not work like the idea of miniaturization does in real life, correct? It is not a comfort to say “it works like it was designed to” because if something is designed wrong it doesn’t matter if it is doing what it was designed to do because it is doing it wrong. In math if you are off by “1” you might as well be off by a “trillion” because you will always get the wrong answer. I realize the problem is with rounding, I used an example related to math. I’m not trying to insult anyone I’m just trying to explain why saying “it works like it was designed to” doesn’t make any sense if you design it to do something but becuase of a logical error it does something else .

Now, how exactly do I mod something that has been hard coded? If I understood correctly it has been hard coded? If it hasn’t could someone please refer me to the file I need to fix.

One more question. Why hasn’t this been fixed? If it is designed wrong it needs to be redesigned. I’m not going to buy the expansion if the base game isn’t working properly in the first place. If the foundation isn’t designed properly why build upon it? Yes I will probably miss out. But I’m not the one who programmed the logical bugs so I am actually saving time, money, and grief by not buying the expansion. Again I am not trying to offend anyone. These are questions a user of a game has the right to ask. Could someone please refer me to the file I need to fix?. If it is hard coded then I would appreciate it if Stardock would release the code so we could fix it for them. Thanks.

Miniturization ratios (Yor) Cargo Hull, Sensors I, Sensors IV --------------------------------- Base (+25%) | 11.8% | 8.8% +10% | 10.8% | 8.1% +15% | 11.0% (+)| 8.5% (+) +15% | 11.1% (+)| 7.7% +15% | 10.1% | 7.1% +20% | 10.0% | 7.3% (+)

So how is going from 7.1% to 7.3% (an increase) making the sensor markIV smaller?
Did I read the table wrong? If I did then please explain it to me because I don't see the sense in this. I realy don't understand. I'm not trying to be a flamming fool. Thanks.

Ok I looked at the table again and this is what I think may be happening. If I am wrong please correct me.

1. So the left column is how much space on the ship is being added (percent wise) as miniturization is being researched. Is that correct?

2. Is the middle and right columns how much space is reduced (percent wise) that the component takes up? Or is it how much space the component gains? (That is what is not making sense to me.

3. Why don't the hull spaces increase with miniturization and not the component size. That, to me, would be easier to impliment and could simulate the component getting smaller becuase there is more room on the hull size than there was before. However, I am not seeing a problem that might create. But that makes perfect sense to me.