TA - Will known issues with gigantic galaxies be addressed for immense galaxies?

So, I suspect I am opening a can of worms here, but there are a few well known issues that create a lot of havoc on gigantic galaxies over all older revisions of GC II. Most of us gig abundant players have found ways of living with them, but I suspect immense galaxies will just make them worse. I am reluctant to try an immense game until I know whether these things will still be a problem.

I should say I have NOT yet tried a TA immense map and, unfortunately, there is no way to see if these have been resolved until you are very deep into a game.

In order of importance and frequency:

1) Ships randomly ships loose their autopilot directions every turn. This is a really big problem when the map is huge and I've seen it on maps as small as large and I've seen it with less than 100 ships under my control. The only solution is to cycle through every ship on the map with movement points and give it new directions over again, every single turn.

BTW subset problem, sending all ships without a destination to a destination used to include the starbases and would lock the game if you hit the turn button without deselecting the starbases, so this was out. Haven't tried that path recently to see if it was resolved.

2) Newly built ship notification pop up on right hand side of screen stops popping up...Eventually planetary build queue notifications will also start disappearing. I've seen two solutions. Set all planets with autopilot destinations. Or (the one I use) have no ships in orbit around any planets and periodically visually scan the entire map for shield icons. In addition, never use the last planet on a tile until you have scheduled the final building type for all squares. This way you can sort for planets that are doing nothing and look for ones that have a (x) next to them, indicating an unbuilt square.

3) Planetary pop up list can't list all the planets (DA forward). You may have fixed this one, not sure.

4) On game load, some ships will pick a new destination and head there. It's usually a far border of the map.

I believe that I have already submitted bug reports on the first two with maps that were extremely overbuilt (and consequently sure to demonstrate this problem every turn). While the submitted games were not typical, they were excellent examples of repeatability. These problems do occur on games that are very much unfinished.

Let me be clear. I'm NOT trying to bash the game or SD. I like the game and SD. I'm just not wanting to deal with these issues on an immense scale.

Any light you can shed on this would be much appreciated.

Thanks!
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Reply #1 Top

BTW subset problem, sending all ships without a destination to a destination used to include the starbases and would lock the game if you hit the turn button without deselecting the starbases, so this was out. Haven't tried that path recently to see if it was resolved.
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This was fixed.  I'm hurt, you don't read my change logs?

3) Planetary pop up list can't list all the planets (DA forward). You may have fixed this one, not sure.
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This was fixed.

I believe that I have already submitted bug reports on the first two with maps that were extremely overbuilt (and consequently sure to demonstrate this problem every turn). While the submitted games were not typical, they were excellent examples of repeatability. These problems do occur on games that are very much unfinished.
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Since DA and Twilight games are not compatible, if you run into these in TA, please re-submit the bugs with TA save games as most of my time is going to be spent in TA.  I can backport the changes after I fix them in TA.

Reply #2 Top
This was fixed. I'm hurt, you don't read my change logs?
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I do, usually...But I missed that one! I can use I'm old and getting older every day?

I believe that I have already submitted bug reports on the first two with maps that were extremely overbuilt (and consequently sure to demonstrate this problem every turn). While the submitted games were not typical, they were excellent examples of repeatability. These problems do occur on games that are very much unfinished.

Since DA and Twilight games are not compatible, if you run into these in TA, please re-submit the bugs with TA save games as most of my time is going to be spent in TA. I can backport the changes after I fix them in TA.
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That's perfectly reasonable. Once TA gets to four/five races, I'll have to see if I can push an immense game out to this stage. I'm hoping the beta runs long enough for me to push a game out to this point. Thanks for being willing to take a look at it. I suspect they may not be that easy to find and fix in the code.

For all you other big mappers out there, here is the chance to get these bugs out of the system.
Reply #3 Top
I'm working on an immense that should have the potential for exhibiting these issues. Just be awhile to develop since I'm slow   

My last gigantic had the no build icon and no gnn popup problem the whole last half of the game and about 75% of about 200 ships losing their auto pilot upon load. Those are the worst ones I experience besides the odd planet that will never send it's ships to a rally point no matter what you do. That's a lot rarer though.
Reply #4 Top
I appreciate folks' concerns about the various big-map problems that boil down to object management (I played for almost two years on *emulated* DirectX 9).

But the title of this thread makes me wonder if Stardock's notion of "known issues with gigantic galaxies" might include the ergonomic weaknesses of the GC2 UI. I could start with thin keyboard support, lists that scroll awkwardly, and lists that should be resizable for folks runnning above default resolution.

These things might not be so important to quick-game fans, but those of us who like to build empires with hundreds of worlds could use a little help with input ovehead.
Reply #5 Top
2) Newly built ship notification pop up on right hand side of screen stops popping up...Eventually planetary build queue notifications will also start disappearing. I've seen two solutions. Set all planets with autopilot destinations. Or (the one I use) have no ships in orbit around any planets and periodically visually scan the entire map for shield icons. In addition, never use the last planet on a tile until you have scheduled the final building type for all squares. This way you can sort for planets that are doing nothing and look for ones that have a (x) next to them, indicating an unbuilt square.
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I have a TA map that is now doing this. I have been able to load the game from the save file and duplicate it. I needed to research items that are likely to generate a lot of planetary completion notifications (soil enhancement and banking tech did it for me) and run through about half a dozen turns or so. I simply cleared planetary build notifications individually each turn until they were gone. About half a dozen turns in, I stop receiving pop ups for completed ship builds (there are some every turn). I will be sending in the save game file tonight.

This is a large map.

Thanks again for looking at this!

BTW I noticed that you think you may have squashed the autopilot bug! Thank you!
Reply #6 Top

BTW I noticed that you think you may have squashed the autopilot bug! Thank you!
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Yes, I think that I have.  If you turn off Skip Moves Left after Autopilot (or whatever that option is) you should at least be able to tell when the ships lose their destination.

I think that the reason that I was never able to reproduce this before was because I usually have that option turned off so that I can get every possible movements from my ships.

However, I am seeing a new problem where AStar is failing to calculate a solution for some paths on Immense galaxies, so I will have to be whacking that code with a stick next week.

 

Reply #7 Top

BTW I noticed that you think you may have squashed the autopilot bug! Thank you!


Yes, I think that I have.  If you turn off Skip Moves Left after Autopilot (or whatever that option is) you should at least be able to tell when the ships lose their destination.


I think that the reason that I was never able to reproduce this before was because I usually have that option turned off so that I can get every possible movements from my ships.


However, I am seeing a new problem where AStar is failing to calculate a solution for some paths on Immense galaxies, so I will have to be whacking that code with a stick next week.


 


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I'm pretty sure I do have that option toggled the other way. Main reason being when I have multiple ships hitting a rally point I want to deal with them all at once, instead of individually. Definitely a different consideration in large maps, so I suspect all the large map players will have this toggled. I have my fingers crossed.
Reply #8 Top
I`m still starting with the date 2226
Reply #9 Top
2) Newly built ship notification pop up on right hand side of screen stops popping up...Eventually planetary build queue notifications will also start disappearing.
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I just received an e-mail from Cari saying she was able to reproduce and fix this....This one has been a real pain to me, and I can't let it go without a public thanks to Cari!

Cari, you have always been great at stomping these things out and I really appreciate it!

Thank you, once again!!!