Prerelease 3.149 (Resource Gifting, Auto-explore+, non-cleartype option, fixes)

[x4000]

Wow, 175k+ ships? That's crazy, even for long games on large maps!

Yeah, we've had two players north of 200k ships.  One of them actually hit 310k ships yesterday -- far too many for the RAM for saving after actually running the game, so we had to cut it down to "only" about twice what most people use at the max.

[superking]

the zenith mirror does not reflect projectiles from the bomber starship for some reason- is this intentional?

[Fleet]

seriously, could you put in some default construction templates?

What, specifically, are you asking for?  What would the default templates be? For each one I need a name, and for each unit I need the unit type, the x-offset, and the y-offset.

Would pre-set templates have to be set as part of the official release, or would I be able to define my own and have it save on my local machine?

Template permanence definitely seems in order.

[Sizzle]

Hopefully we can perhaps get exportable templates that can be shared (maybe with an attached image) in the community wiki.   The community then could create their own 'best practices' templates.

[keith.lamothe]

Would pre-set templates have to be set as part of the official release, or would I be able to define my own and have it save on my local machine?

Template permanence definitely seems in order.

As it's currently implemented your construction templates are saved to your settings.dat file (which isn't shareable, I may look at using a separate file or even folder of files that is fully shareable, etc); is it not acting that way?

[Giegue]

I'm looking for basic things like 'wormhole defence'

'important planet defence' (focuses on building turrets, shields, tractor beams at wormholes, and is used for your home planet or other 'always keep this' type planets)

'suppressor' 'arrestor' (basically adaptations of the riot ships stuff as well)

(oh, and each one would have MK lvls. once all the requirements are met, you automatically get the next MK lvl)\\

any basic need you can think of.

also: there really needs to be an more 'auto' control nodes. but thats for the suggestion forum...

[superking]

deciding upon and placing defences always struck me as one of the funner element of the game (thanks to shift+ctrl for placing five at time multiple times). Why do players wish to automise it?

[keith.lamothe]

I really prefer to be able to "cover" the wormholes of a newly conquered system quickly without having to pause and spend a few minutes, etc.

Also, it allows the use of arc-place and whatnot of multiple distinct building types without having to go through that interface that many times.

[Giegue]

exactly! so what do you say about pre-defined templates huh?

[keith.lamothe]

I say that it's really not that hard to take a few minutes in one game to define a few that you can use from then on in

But once we get the export/import thing working (at least at a manual level) I would be fine with including a default set via the "import" mechanism.

[Giegue]

then make a tutorial on how. there is no indication graphicwise that templates even exist.

[x4000]

then make a tutorial on how. there is no indication graphicwise that templates even exist.

This is a pretty minor feature for advanced players who want to use it.  We're not looking for busywork to turn this into something that plays the game for people.  No other game that I can think of that comes with build templates comes with stock ones in place in advance; and those also tend not to be features covered in a tutorial.  The advanced players know what they want and know how to refer to the documentation (or just the in-game menu, as the case may be) to get what they need out of the feature.

Riot starships are different because to use them at all you must have some sort of loadout on them.  So Keith created a few basic loadouts to make them extremely easy to use, because it's an important ship.  When it comes to build templates, that's as niche a feature as they come; only an already-advanced player would even need to use them, and even then only players of a certain mindset would even want to use them (I, for example, have no interest in the templates at all -- I'm OCD in my own ways, but not that particular one).

It sounds like what you're looking for is more something along the lines of hints of prefab "this will win me the wormhole" type of loadouts.  This is part of why I don't have any interest in build templates for that sort of purpose in particular: there is no one way to defend a wormhole, and figuring out how to do each type of scenario is the game.  That's not something we'd ever automate.

[Lancefighter]

Before templates, I could place 2-3 shift-ctrl clicks of my 4 main turret types (basic, mlrs, missile, laser) worth of turrets in a roughly triangular fashion around any hostile wormhole. More for home systems.. But that was my basic defense: 10 or 15 of each of those turrets. Now, I can simply and easily place that combination (in a more beautiful circle pattern, mind you) around a wormhole. One click per wormhole, plus a few to open the template. this, for me, is a time saving thing. (and I recently 'walled up' a 8-wh planet, mind you.. its a LOT of saved clicks)

yes, it is not as advantageous as planning out the defense with the expected direction of hostile movement, but its a hell of a lot quicker. Thus, its worth it for me.

Also could be used to build a selection of 'per planet units', like a rebuilder, mk1+2 power gen, research lab, and a forcefield depending on how you use it (in conjunction with a command center turretball, mind you)


Oh, and yeah - Wormhole defenses will often need to be suited per-planet basis. Theres no such 'one size fits all win-machine' in AI war - there are some good tactics, but often because they are flexible enough to work in most situations.
Sure, if you place 30 of each turret around a wormhole, theres a good chance nothing will get through, but at a good deal of material and energy costs, not to mention ship cap costs.

[x4000]

I'm not saying not to use the feature -- certainly individual players will build up their own build patterns overall, and it would make sense for them to automate those.  Personally I have about 10ish build strategies that I use for wormholes, depending on the game and what's going on at that planet.  Well, really, I probably have more than that if you count the really infrequent strategies.  But if I was template-oriented I might be able to save a tad of time by turning those into templates.

My point is more that those will also vary by player.  Anyone else looking at my build patterns wouldn't know the optimal usage of when to use each one, and most likely my patterns would not be a fit for many players' strategies because our overall playstyles are probably pretty different.

That's why templates are great for automating at least the basic shape of various placement strategies that an individual player might use, but would be absolutely horrendous at trying to automate the placements in a more general cross-player sense.  And even if you use templates for your own wormhole strategies, you'll probably need to tweak them slightly at many usages.

And yes, there are many other potential uses for it -- the per-planet stuff mentioned, etc.  Of course, what one player versus another builds per-planet is going t ovary like crazy.  Hence, again, it's for archiving and easing your own personal strategies, rather than it being an overall "press this button to win" type feature.

[Giegue]

this game already has too many keyboard combinations to do things. at least make some sort of menu or visual type thing to use as I haven't even found the way to do this yet.