[X3LU] Mayhem 3.21b

[dunderhead327]

That sounds like a good idea to me.

[Joubarbe]

I know we all have different opinions about this, but i think it would be quite redundant. (maybe i'm missing something)

NPC's usually need Chemicals. All Traders (even your own) will sell your Chemicals to them.
These basically ain't your Chemicals anymore as soon as you click the button to open the factory for any trader. The Chemicals mostly end up in NPC factories and leave your supply chain for money.

The Chemicals you do need for your own use should mostly come from factories which are locked to all Traders and just get served by Agents, no?

You're right. I've tried a different approach this time, but what I should be doing is to close my factory to the NPC, then sell the excess from my Outpost.

EDIT: just noticed that trade runs don't respect trade locks, which is a bug.

[Joubarbe]

I'm under the impression that the pace of the game could be a lot better if all default Outposts (ie. those spawned during galaxy generation) would receive about the number of resources above. That is a massive boost from what the current version has, but you would get more action on the beginning, you would be able to buy ships easily, and on mid-game, when you're starting to be very focus on your empire only, the pace will slow down a bit, giving you a chance to rise.

Also, I'm going to recommend that galaxies whose size is below the average should be played with Extra stats.

[Jonzac]

I have a question on sector miners. They always seem to be mining for silicon wafers and never Ore. How can I (is it possible) to force them to mine for Ore not Silicon?

[4square425]

I'm still getting the bug where boarding causes corrupted save games.

This is a save and galaxy right before I'm about to board a Split M7 (uncorrupted). I didn't capture the ship though, so an early exfiltration might cause it, especially under Sentinel patrol.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

[Joubarbe]

@Jonzac: It's not possible at the moment. Maybe later.

@PonyMaster: Thanks, I'll look into it. Did you rename your marines at any point? If so, when?

In 3.3, default Outposts resources will look like this:

Spoiler

Show

More resources, most of them only exportable. Also more Crystals.

[Joubarbe]

@SuperPony: No matter what I try, I can't corrupt the savegame. I have 10 savegames, tried to exfiltrate at different moments, but nothing "works".

[Joubarbe]

@Jonzac:



I want a kiss.

[4square425]

@SuperPony: No matter what I try, I can't corrupt the savegame. I have 10 savegames, tried to exfiltrate at different moments, but nothing "works".

Frustrating, probably more for you. I didn't rename my marines at any point, BTW. The only other point of data was that I boarded, moved to deck 2, wired money, disabled shields, exfiltrated while hiding, then went in again while the shields were still below 10%. I made it to deck 3 on that run.

[Joubarbe]

Please be extra clear on that. Do you have a step-by-step procedure to recreate the bug and corrupt the savegame you sent me?

[Hector0x]

Idea for Fleet improvement:

I often read that players want their fleet ships to stay close and support each other. They want to prevent that fast and fragile ships rush in first and get picked off one by one. This seems to be the main concern for many people in regards to fleet battles. One could argue that it should be the default behavior that a fleet moves as a unit and only scatters once enemies are fairly close.
The current system already allows to do exactly that.

But:
- not with default fleet settings
- figuring the required settings out and preventing fleet scattering from far away is overly complicated for newcomers
- the required settings have some (minor) limitations


How it is right now:
You can keep a fairly tight fleet formation by decreasing both, the commander and the follower scanning ranges. (because as soon as the commander engages, the followers leave him and engage on their own)

Followers can get activated by commander scanning range or follower scanning range.

(or any command which makes the commander attack something. Hopefully the upcoming auto-response sector monitoring feature doesn't make followers rush ahead from 3 sectors away. )

What you can't do right now are long range attacks where the fleet travels as a unit and only starts to scatter just before a battle starts.
Now the settings we have right now work decently fine if you ask me. But i think there is room for improvement.
The two scanning ranges generally seem a bit confusing for new players. Because low follower scanning range doesn't mean that the fleet stays together (low commander scanning range is also required to make this happen).

And then low scanning ranges also require good positioning, so that enemies don't slip by undetected. Nothing is gamebreaking. But in summary fleets can get a bit unwieldy. And wouldn't it be a shame if players went back to traditional vanilla control methods like broadcasting to all ships over such intricacies? (XenonArchitect07's "Hour of Brutality" video comes to mind)


Proposed addition:
How about a new toggle in fleet settings "maintain fleet formation: yes/no" (which is set to "yes" on default).

This option sets all followers into "Escort:Protect" mode for their commander. Followers ignore fleet rule no.1 (attack what the commander is attacking). So if the commander starts to engage at long range, his followers don't engage and still just follow him.
Result:

Followers only get activated once enemies are inside follower scanning range.

(or only if the commander receives damage when follower scanning range is set to zero. If i understand the "Escort" order correctly it doesn't check if the target itself gets targeted. Only if the target receives damage.)


Because let's be honest. Starting to scatter form 100km away is only useful if you are mopping up a number of inferior enemies. The NPC's have fairly tightly packed and therefore efficient squadrons. They usually smash an equal player force if it scatters while they are still far away.

[Joubarbe]

Why not rally to a specific position in the sector?
I could limit the range of the rule no. 1, ie. do not attack what the command is attacking if the target is out of leader's laser range.
For technical reasons, giving a command within a command, especially for the fleets, is a bad idea. You cannot get out of that, and the whole system must be simple: one command for the leader, one command for the followers. Changing things on that area would change a lot of things, because AI squadrons and player fleets are related.

[Hector0x]

I don't have the engine knowhow like you do. The default behavior is unsuited to be default is all i'm saying.

default settings are:
- leader attacks at long range
- followers also attack at long range (follower scanning range is low, but it's overridden by followers getting triggered from the commander's attack)

customizable different setup:
- leader attacks at short range
- followers attack at short range
(this is what i'm mostly using. The drawback is low monitoring range of the entire fleet. They have to be close to where the enemy will be.)

this seems to be impossible:
- leader attacks at long range
- followers attack once at short range (fleet could have high monitoring range and still engage far away enemies together)

I think overall usability would be greatly improved if the last setup was possible and if it was also the default setting. There has to be some way without having to rewrite the fleet code for everyone.


Limiting follower attacks to the commanders laser range would work, but it seems too restrictive (unless there is a toggle for it). It should still be possible to let followers "hunt" on their own at long ranges. Sometimes you won't want fast ships to stick to a slow and heavy commander all the time.

Couldn't you maybe disable the two target priorities "Leader's attacker" and "Leaders target" exclusively on player fleet followers only?
According to the fleet setting info text this would make follower scanning range and priority target the only two triggers for a follower attack. Both are self explanatory and can be controlled by the player. Would it be impossible to control followers only with their scanning range?

[Joubarbe]

I'll see what I can do my little green man under the hood!

EDIT: "Limiting follower attacks to the commanders laser range would work, but it seems too restrictive (unless there is a toggle for it)" Having a toggle for this is the easiest implementation.

[4square425]

Please be extra clear on that. Do you have a step-by-step procedure to recreate the bug and corrupt the savegame you sent me?

I'll try to corrupt it tonight.

[djmidex]

is there a way to order all my ships in the fleet to dock at a station at once?

[4square425]

Try as I might, I can't deliberately re-create the corruption of the save game. However, I put the video I recorded of the session when it happened in the folder with the save and galaxy.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing


I started the boarding at 00:28:45, saved around 00:37:48 in Slot #1 (before the M7 went through a wormhole). I pursued through the wormhole, continued the mission and got locked down at 00:48:05. Thus, I re-loaded the save in Slot #1 successfully. This save wasn't corrupted.

I pursued the M7 through the wormhole and continued the boarding (after re-loading again after dying from a ramming incident). I exfiltrated while hiding around 00:53:01, then re-boarded when the shields were still at 10%.

I saved again at 1:00:06 in Slot #5 when it went through the wormhole again. I then exfiltrated without a Sentinel at 1:02:20.

At that point the shields are above 10% again, so I have to wait for the mobile EMP cooldown. I saved again at 1:05:22 in Slot #1 (unknowingly overwriting the non-corrupt save).

I did other tasks for a while before ending the session. I saved again at 1:46:06 in slots #1 and #9. At that point I re-load and discover the corrupted save game at 1:41:38.

From this, I can say that the corruption happened sometime between 00:37:48 and the end of the session. Possible bug points might be exfiltrating when hiding, having a target ship going through a wormhole, re-loading midway through a boarding mission, re-boarding after disabling the shields in the mission.


Today, when I was trying to re-create the bug, I did most of those actions, except for:
1. Re-boarding after disabling shields.
2. Dying and re-loading midway through the boarding mission.

[dunderhead327]

The drawback is low monitoring range of the entire fleet. They have to be close to where the enemy will be.

Sounds like you want a radar picket, but I suspect that the engine couldn't handle that as part of a fleet unless a specific formation could be created (Joubarbe?).

Following on from that, if it could be done, it may create a need for a role-specific ship type - maybe an M8 Sentinel with a built-in triplex scanner, faster than the standard M8, but no weapons apart from Chaff, and reduced cargo space so it's only got enough Chaff for self-defence.

[Joubarbe]

From this, I can say that the corruption happened sometime between 00:37:48 and the end of the session. Possible bug points might be exfiltrating when hiding, having a target ship going through a wormhole, re-loading midway through a boarding mission, re-boarding after disabling the shields in the mission.

Based on a complete random intuition, I'd say that it's likely to be corrupted while there is an ongoing mission. However, I've tested all the cases you mention here: no corruption.

The data architecture is unusual for the marines system. That's why it gets corrupted: there are some data I don't properly delete somewhere, I guess. Plus I'm using the name of the marines as data keys, which is a ridiculous programming mistake.

[Joubarbe]

Yeah, I cannot reproduce anything, sorry. The best thing you can do to debug, is to load your game right after you save it.