X3FL (1.2) "New" weapon factories screw up complex planner calculations

[steve_v]

As another example of the extreme brokenness of FL, adding one of the new (in FL) weapon factories (so far observed with PBC forge and IBL forge) to a complex causes the complex planner to multiply output of all stations in the complex by some random factor. Cycle times are showing as correct, but number of products is multiplied by anything from 2x (the large weapon fab itself) to 10x (200MJ shield fab).
Disconnecting said factory returns the planner to the expected numbers.
Also it thinks Quantum tube fabs produce microchips for some reason, but that's a relatively minor niggle. The huge deviation from reality however renders the tool completely useless.

I really don't get it, we had a perfectly good complex planner mod for TC/AP years ago, yet this officially "blessed" by Egosoft version is utterly broken. How does that even happen?
Did anyone actually test all this new stuff, or did we just throw some back-catalogue mods into a pot, give it a quick stir, and call it a "DLC"?

This is getting beyond a joke, the more I try to play this, the more broken it gets. Where's the next patch at already?

On a related note, where should I be reporting this stuff anyway? I've already had one moved from tech support, and there's no proper bug reporting mechanism I can find...

Ed. I ran the numbers manually on the complex that has a quantum tube fab, and it screws up more than just microchip production. Like the weapons fabs, it multiplies the projected output of all other factories.
Here adding a single "L" tube fab throws the calculations out by ~1.33x, and again removing it returns the result to what they should be.

[Hwitvlf]

The miscalculation issue was reported long ago.

I have seen no statement by the Devs as to a preferred method of reporting bugs, and when I asked the question directly, it was ignored. I think it's been made fairly clear that there are no plans for another update, but one Dev said they were still tracking bugs, alluding to a vague hope of a future update. Personally, I'm still reporting significant bugs that I run into in hopes that it helps, but I don't expect a reply or fix anytime soon.

I wouldn't feel too irate about it. People were angry at Egosoft for favoritism in 'endorsing' the FL Dev team with an official release. It's impossible to please everyone. Egosoft relies on profits to keep their doors open so we can't expect them to work too much on a free product. The FL Dev team is no different than other private modders; many of those mods are riddled with bugs or balance issues and I have never seen such 'hate' for those mods.

I believe companies have become abusive to their customers by releasing unfinished, bug ridden games and charging full price. This has made people generally sensitive to the subject, but that's not what's going on here. FL is a free mod made by fans in their spare time. Egosoft was kind enough to donate time to add a few tweaks too, but it's still a free, fan-made mod and should be regarded as such.

I find FL significantly better than AP as-is. It is unfortunate that a couple key features have issues (Station Manager/ Complex Planner/ Drone Carriers), but even if Egosoft can't take more time to update FL, there's nothing stopping others from making a bug fix.

[steve_v]

I wouldn't feel too irate about it. People were angry at Egosoft for favoritism in 'endorsing' the FL Dev team with an official release. It's impossible to please everyone. Egosoft relies on profits to keep their doors open so we can't expect them to work too much on a free product. The FL Dev team is no different than other private modders; many of those mods are riddled with bugs or balance issues and I have never seen such 'hate' for those mods.

I believe companies have become abusive to their customers by releasing unfinished, bug ridden games and charging full price. This has made people generally sensitive to the subject, but that's not what's going on here. FL is a free mod made by fans in their spare time. Egosoft was kind enough to donate time to add a few tweaks too, but it's still a free, fan-made mod and should be regarded as such.

That's all well and good, but presentation begets perception. Being officially endorsed and packaged by Egosoft implies a higher level of quality, and failing so badly at QA on a package with their name on it, regardless of who was engaged to do the actual work, reflects pretty badly on them.

If this were presented as just another collection of fan-made mods, or better yet the mods were available independently with their own release threads as is the norm, I'd treat them as such with all the non-expectation of functionality that entails.
I'd also be able to individually test components before committing to a playthrough, and I'd likely be able to contact the individual mod authors in the mod release threads, as I have done in the past.

But that's not how FL was presented at all. It got the Egosoft stamp of approval, up on a pedestal and distinct from all the other (and IME far less buggy) fan made mods out there. It's not a "*modified* game, your warranty now void, no support" third-party addition, but an officially endorsed "Free DLC".
As such, I fully expect to be able to pick it up and play it like any other DLC, without encountering a bunch of "features" that were clearly not tested at all.

If what this really is is a bunch unmaintained unsupported mods, then it had no place whatsoever being packaged as a DLC, and Egosoft doesn't plan to support it, then they should not have associated their name with it. It should have simply gone in the TC/AP S&M forum with all the other unsupported mods.


TLDR: I have no problem with bugs in mods. I expect bugs in mods, and I'm watching for them. Bugs in endorsed content that is described as DLC are a different story, and really don't like being blindsided by such thoroughly broken experience.

Note I'm pointing no fingers at the volunteer modders here, I'm reserving that entirely for the commercial entity which slapped the "DLC" sticker on a hot mess without testing it. Even if they don't get a cent from sales (which is nonsense anyway, I for one bought the "donation package" anticipating a quality experience, and I'm sure others did too), they're still getting a bunch of publicity.
Shame it's not particularly good publicity due to the number of bugs they failed to find.

[Jimmy C]

Does anyone know an offline complex planner for FL, then? I could use one that isn't buggy.

[steve_v]

Does anyone know an offline complex planner for FL, then? I could use one that isn't buggy.

Not "offline" per-se, but this web-tool isn't bad. It's still a bit WIP and doesn't handle all the new factories, but fudging that is a lot better than the useless in-game planner.

[Jimmy C]

I remember that one being referred to before. But I can't seem to get it to work. Nothing shows up when I click to choose a factory.

[steve_v]

Nothing shows up when I click to choose a factory.

Yeah, that's kinda confusing alright. The "choose a factory" text-box autocompletes: Ignore the "pick one" prompt and just start typing something, then select from the dropdown that appears. Bloody newfangled HTML5 madness.

[Pol8]

Not specifically for FL, but I use Xadrian https://kayahr.github.io/xadrian/ for all of my calculations. It doesn't have all the factories and sectors for FL, but it does the job well enough. Adding Factory upgrades is a bit cumbersome, but doable. I plan everything there, and then just manually add factories to the in-game planner so that my TLs can auto-build the complex.

[Jimmy C]

I have xadrian from years ago too. How did you even add upgrades using it?
I decided to go with the online one from the previous post to get a view of the production numbers first. Then, I'll put the unupgraded stations into xadrian to generate a shopping list. Finally, I'll put that one into the game for reference.

[Pol8]

Upgrades are just production multipliers, so all you have to do is add some multiple of the factory to the complex, and you get the "upgraded" version. You have to keep track of these multiples yourself.

For example, to balance a complex around an in-game L size Argon PPC fab, you would add 5 S size Argon PPC fabs to your complex in Xadrian, and then work with that. Likewise, if you want an XXL food fab, you add 4X of the L size fab. It was a little awkward at first, but you pick up the multiplier math pretty quickly.

For reference, Here are the production multipliers:

• S = 1X
• M = 2X
• L = 5X
• XL = 10X
• XXL = 20X

Tech stations that don't have a size in their name start at 1X. Stations with a size in their name have the corresponding production multiplier applied from the start.

The really nice part about using Xadrian is that you can mix-and-match upgrade levels of the stations. For example, if you wanted to have an XL and XXL solar power plant in the same complex, you just add 3 XL solar power plants. The in-game editor does not allow you to have stations of the same type at different upgrade levels(IIRC, please correct me). You can work around this by pulling in stations of different factory-bought sizes, and upgrading them separately. For the previous example, you would have to place and XL->XXL SPP and and an L->XL SPP. This get cumbersome and expensive.

Maybe one of these days when I have time (Ha Ha!) I'll see about making changes to Xadrian to support FL with the upgrade system and new fabs. I much prefer to use a locally- installable calculator for my complexes, as websites will go down (x3 wiki, anyone?) and then you lose hours of planning work.

[Hwitvlf]

Nice to know the conversion factors. Food and bio factories are 1:1 which is easy to figure but the variables in solar and minerals are where it you really need a good planner. You can change the upgrade size in the built-in planner.


If there's a problem with the 'new factories' or tube fabs as mentioned in top post I haven't seen it, but I have seen an issue that appears to happen when adding new factories to an already existing complex. To work-around it, you can just plan add-ons before you add the existing complex to the planner. Also, after expanding the complex, you can load it into the planner to verify its output.

[steve_v]

If there's a problem with the 'new factories' or tube fabs as mentioned in top post I haven't seen it

TBH I haven't built enough complexes (or spent long enough with the script editor spawning them) to narrow down exactly what causes it. What I do know is that I currently have 3 complexes, none of them particularly large (20-30 stations), which have completely screwed up production numbers in the planner.
It certainly appears to be triggered by adding certain factories, and the tube fabs and large weapon factories seem reliable in that connecting them screws up the numbers, and disconnecting them un-screws it.

That's not the only bug in the complex planner mind, I've noticed that adding an asteroid then building a mine on it makes it into an unremovable zero-yield in the planner (necessitating deleting the plan and starting again), and at one point I had a mystery "readtext" object appear in one of my complexes as well. Note that this is an unmodified game, and I'm not doing anything peculiar here.
Clearly this thing wasn't tested beyond a couple of very simple layouts before shoving it out the door.

Frankly, given the sheer number of broken and buggy features in this game, I'm pretty disinclined to do more unpaid beta-testing... Especially as there's apparently little chance of anything getting patched, and the likes of Cycrow seem unwilling (another thread) to share despite claiming to have "already fixed that".
It's particularly infuriating to find this sort of thing tens of hours into a game, and I'd have much preferred it was simply left out if there wasn't time or manpower to test properly.
Hell, there isn't even a list of "known bugs", or at least none that I can find anywhere. If there was fair and present warning I simply wouldn't have used these features, and I wouldn't be so pissy about it now.

[Jimmy C]

Speaking of Complex Planner issues, is it just me or does the planner have the Paranid Hurricane Factory in its lists?
I was in the middle of building out my complex in it when I saw this.

[Hwitvlf]

I don't think a factory shows up if you haven't logged it in for sale yet (aka not in the encyclopedia). Try clicking 'info' on the Paranid shipyard in Third redemption and see if it appears.

I would also be interested to know if there are any differences between the in the planner and the online planner once you get the layout entered.

[Jimmy C]

I don't think a factory shows up if you haven't logged in for sale yet (aka not in the encyclopedia). Try clicking 'info' on the Paranid shipyard in Third redemption and see if it appears.

I would also be interested to know if there are any differences between the in the planner and the online planner once you get the layout entered.

I clicked on info on the yard in Heaven's Assertion, which also has Hurricane factories, and that worked. Thanks.
I put the entire complex into the game's planner and it's gone crazy. While food and bio quantities do balance out, I can see various products are produced at way higher numbers than the online planner, than even those stations by themselves in a new complex. For instance, the full complex with its 13 XXL SPPs is said to produce 54 million ECells. A complex with only those 13 XXL SPPs should produce only 2.4 million ECells. Same for the crystals.

Here's the save. Just open the planner and look at "Main Complex" and compare each of the production with another complex that has only stations of that type.

[Hwitvlf]

EDIT: Not a bug. Adding some factories changes the planner's displayed production-cycle time .
ORIGINAL POST:
Thanks Jimmy C. This is a different bug than the one I ran into while adding onto an existing factory (it showed insane production deficits) but it's probably related. It seems to be caused by weapon factories as steve_v said, but not just the new factories. Also Quantum Tube, Shields and some other random factories send the production readout soaring.

Too bad. I hope a miracle happens and we see another update.

[Cycrow]

I don't think a factory shows up if you haven't logged in for sale yet (aka not in the encyclopedia). Try clicking 'info' on the Paranid shipyard in Third redemption and see if it appears.

I would also be interested to know if there are any differences between the in the planner and the online planner once you get the layout entered.

I clicked on info on the yard in Heaven's Assertion, which also has Hurricane factories, and that worked. Thanks.
I put the entire complex into the game's planner and it's gone crazy. While food and bio quantities do balance out, I can see various products are produced at way higher numbers than the online planner, than even those stations by themselves in a new complex. For instance, the full complex with its 13 XXL SPPs is said to produce 54 million ECells. A complex with only those 13 XXL SPPs should produce only 2.4 million ECells. Same for the crystals.

Here's the save. Just open the planner and look at "Main Complex" and compare each of the production with another complex that has only stations of that type.

the values look correct.

a XXL SPP produces 11060 energy cells per cycle, with sun of 150%, the cycle time is 3:35 (215 seconds)
so the production race is (11050 * 13) / 215 = 668.74418 (energy cells per second)
the cycle time in the planner is 22:28:00 (80880 seconds)

so the production would be 668.74418 * 80880 = 54088029.767 (rounded down)

not sure where you got the 2.4 million from?

[Jimmy C]

not sure where you got the 2.4 million from?

Use the complex planner to start a new complex in the same sector. Place only 13 XXL SPPs and no other stations. The planner states the output is 2.4 million ECells.
If you are right and 54 million is the correct output, then why is the Planner showing 2.4 million before other stations are added?

[Cycrow]

not sure where you got the 2.4 million from?

Use the complex planner to start a new complex in the same sector. Place only 13 XXL SPPs and no other stations. The planner states the output is 2.4 million ECells.

of course, because its showing it for a cycle time for an hour.
but with all the weapons factories, the cycle time is 22 hours.
this is displayed at the top of the menu which cycle time its currently being used. All the products are based on how much is produced/consumed over this time

the cycle time is the greater of 1 hour or twice the highest factory cycle.
in your complex, you have a split ion shard fac, that has a cycle time of 11:14:00, so the complex cycle time is 22:28:00

the cycle time it displays needs to cover at least 1 complete cycle for factories

[Jimmy C]

So all the production numbers were showing the output over a varying timescale? Ok.
On the Planner, I saw the ECell output was high enough that I could remove one XXL SPP, along with the stations supporting it, and still have a surplus. This was not what the online calculator showed. Is it because they're rounding the numbers to the hourly production numbers?
This reminds me of the xadrian calculator for TC and AP, I always felt the complexes I created with it had more surplus than the calculator said it should.