Game performance

[Cinth]

Just want to start off by saying I'm not trying to break the game... it just happens and I'm sorry for the wall of text

Playing the latest beta, the game loads up incredibly fast, the background look great, and I'm still having fun.

Tooling around with a 10/10 Grav Drill/ Vanilla (Golems/Spire hard 4/4, DS 10, HRF 10, Fallen Spire 4, SCL, Z Trader)
no plots complex ships ultra low caps. 120 planets, 16 HW snake layout.

I've played this setup now 3 times (4th is still in progress) and I've been able to run the game fairly consistent until a large battle pops on a planet (15k ships and turrets in the same system or more) or threat levels in the galaxy get to unmanageable levels (I managed in on failed game to push threat to over 32000 and that didn't include incoming waves).

So aside from me pushing the upper limits of what the engine can handle, I'd say it's good 

Some things I've noticed though.  With shot graphics disabled, snipers, sniper turrets, and zenith beam frigates still have a graphic for their shots (assist)? There are no options to disable engi, MRS, Fort repair lines (assist again?) And tractor turrets have no option either. Might be a few more I haven't remember right off or haven't explicitly seen. Not super important but might help some in large battles. 

When the threat level is extremely high, the game starts to get a bit slow.  I think maybe forcing a CPA if the threat gets way out of hand (32k threat in one game.. I was praying for a 20k CPA) would be good.

And a blurb about carriers. I'm starting to like carriers. Not because they make the game smoother or anything like that but because they are the proverbial Pandora's Box. Nothing says SURPRISE like popping a 1K carrier and getting a mix of fleet, star, spire, and golems with no warning. Makes these guys a lot bigger threat and makes popping them away from any defensive line a real choice. 

And since I'm here, 10/10 is OW ... a mothership to the knee...

AI is constantly sending waves from about the 7 minute mark on. Just enough time to get a good mix of ships out and get a defensive position set. It only gets worse from there. Windows to raid AI planets are short and AIP quickly becomes unmanageable (current game is  5 planets gate raided and one of those is neutral AIP 132).
SCL is killing me right now.
The fun stuff the AI likes to do (and sheesh) is sending a constant stream of waves while I'm preparing for an Exo.
We are talking 4- 12k worth of ships in each wave from about 55% on the Exo timer until about 97% on the timer.
I'm about 6:50 into the curent game and I fully expect to take a mothership to the knee.

Edit: And here she comes...

[Mánagarmr]

Yeah, 10/10 has been consistently buffed in the latest betas due to that bug.

[Hearteater]

Just a note, a CPA takes dormant AI ships and releases them, making them into threat.  So triggering a CPA on high threat, would just add extra threat, but would do nothing to make that threat attack you.  CPAs generally causes multiple attacks because all that released threat can find a weak spot to attack.  But if you defend well, especially if you use Fortresses which threat ships HATE attacking, a CPA will do nothing but make your threat number go up.

It can actually be a good idea to NOT cover every avenue with a Fortress so threat has a place to bleed in before it gets overwhelming.

[Cinth]

I'll admit... I haven't played the game in a long time and even then when I was, I was a 7/7 at best.

The main point was to say the game runs pretty good and what I was doing to push the limits.
And I did forget to mention that the game sits comfortably @ 1.3~1.4 GB (Task manager) and throws memory exceptions at 1.7.


I'm not seriously trying in 10/10, but I am learning a ton of stuff really fast.  That said, there are still a lot of mechanics I am not familiar with, and CPA falls into that.  I'm sure no one in there right mind would push threat that high on purpose, but I think then it hits a certain threshold, the AI should send them and flush the excess.

Pretty much a background performance thing

And yes I know 10/10 was buffed... again...but I was feelin like pushing my luck.  As soon as I figure out a few things.. I'm going to give it a real serious attempt.

[keith.lamothe]

Glad to hear it's working well, in the sense that a chipper-shredder (for players) does at least

[Cinth]

Well.. I can't just say I broke it (and have you try and fix some of it) and not say when it does work.

And throw in a few ideas that might help performance wise.

[TechSY730]

I'm not seriously trying in 10/10, but I am learning a ton of stuff really fast.  That said, there are still a lot of mechanics I am not familiar with, and CPA falls into that.  I'm sure no one in there right mind would push threat that high on purpose, but I think then it hits a certain threshold, the AI should send them and flush the excess.

CPAs will trigger whether you created threat or not. There is no way to stop them from freeing those ships, short of destroying so many fleet ships on defense, that the AI cannot fulfill its CPA count (quite hard to do, though there have been some reports of it)

There are other mechanics for dealing with ludicrous amounts of threat. Barracks, packing them into carriers, scraping lower marks for a higher mark (not 1:1 though, like it has to scrap 2 Mk. Is to get 1 Mk. II), and other fun stuff. If all else fails, the AI has scrap waves it can send, where it will send excess threat as a wave to "flush" them, though it is quite rare that it will have to resort to that.

Actually, when a scrap wave triggers, does it "teleport" them to a wormhole on a human planet side, like a normal wave would spawn at the wormhole?

[keith.lamothe]

I don't think I've ever seen or heard reports of a genuine scrap wave, the threshold is really high.

[Cinth]

I can't say for sure what the AI had done with 32k threat ships since I only had 8 planets of 104 scouted.

Though, I know HOW to make the AI do it again lol

Seriously though.. the game drags a bit when the background threat gets high.