Poll: Bug of the Year (I)

[keith.lamothe]

Nominations from this thread.  Also look there if you want an explanation of what we're doing here.  Basically: help me find out which bug-fixes are most important to making the game more fun.

It was tricky to actually come up with a list of votable items because several nominations were without mantis records; I had said that was ok (sorry) but in practice a lot of the proposed items would be unclear to the voters and during-the-poll is not a good time to be clarifying what a given item means.  Anyway, basically I thought this would be easier than it was, hence the delay.  Several nominations were suggestions and not bugs, and others I just went ahead and fixed, and others didn't come with a mantis link.  The remainder are above, for your selection for attention from the extermination cannon.

There are 22 options, so 4 votes per person this time, and I'll try to do something with the top 4 results), but probably not more than that because "processing" the results tends to significantly bog down if there's a ton of winners.  I'll call the results once things stabilize (we usually see 25-35 voters, and it takes about 48 hours for them to all check in).

Mainly what I'm looking for from each of you is "which of these bug you, personally, the most?"  So if you've never encountered a specific bug listed above you probably shouldn't vote for it (it may not even be in the game anymore, some are pretty intermittent and some are fairly old, etc).  But if you really want to vote for something because it sounds annoying rather than because you've actually been annoyed at it, oh well, not much I can do to stop you

Thanks for the feedback

[Winge]

Looks like I'm not alone on "Many special structures seeding only for first AI Player"  .  That bug really does mess up defensive AI balance.

[/endexcuseforbump]

[TechSY730]

It's a bit too early to tell, but it seems like there may be a large N way tie for the second and third most voted issues (note, this would be an N way tie for 2nd place, but not 3rd place, due to the awkward way ties interact with Nth place arrangements)

How do you usually handle ties in these types of polls, Keith?

[keith.lamothe]

How do you usually handle ties in these types of polls, Keith?

Sheer arbitrary caprice.

[KDR_11k]

Yay, Hybrids finally hit second place.

[TechSY730]

Yay, Hybrids finally hit second place.

And third place as well by the looks of it.

[keith.lamothe]

Yep, it's been a bit over 48 hours and there's over 30 voters, so here are the winners:

Many special structures seeding only for first AI Player - 21

Units avoid attacking hybrids if possible - 15

"Defensive Hybrids are mobilizing" doesn't seem to do anything - 12

(for turrets) Make most base ship caps a multiple of 8 to fix ultra-low ship cap rounding errors skewing balance - 10

If I have time I'll consider the ones further down too.

Anyway, for "Many special structures seeding only for first AI Player" and "(for turrets) Make most base ship caps a multiple of 8 to fix ultra-low ship cap rounding errors skewing balance" I know what needs to happen, but for "Units avoid attacking hybrids if possible" and "'Defensive Hybrids are mobilizing' doesn't seem to do anything" I'm much more likely to be able to accomplish something with those if I have saves or some other way of reproducing the actual observed problem, and neither mantis record has a save.  It's possible someone's already given me saves on one or both via PM or forum post or whatever and if so I apologize for forgetting, but please humor me and post the save on the mantis record or here directly

(I'd thought http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,12746.msg140059.html#msg140059 had a save for the first hybrid issue, but it's actually something else entirely)

[KDR_11k]

I don't have a save at hand and can't currently produce one but the targeting issue can be reproduced easily with a champ loaded up with bomber drone bays. A good "bad alternative target" is the Railcluster. This may also work with FF gens and nearby units outside the FF.

Also I think people aren't checking this poll thread anymore...

[orzelek]

I actually never had problems with reproducing the targeting issue with hybrids.

Take 1 champion and group of hybrids. Tell champion to kill hybrids. It will kill one.. and then start killing the escorts. It's targeting priority will stay at hybrid. Same behavior affects fleet ships.

PS.
I have focus fire toggle enabled for both sniper and non sniper.

PPS.
In attached save jump with champion to Kamurder. Order it to kill hybrids there.
It will shot at hybrids.. but not really consistently. And it will manage to kill most of escorts even with targeting priority on champion and all it's modules reading hybrid. And standing inside bunch of hybrids while other ships are coming from further away.. and they will get shot before hybrids.
It's not a best example but I couldn't find better atm.

[TechSY730]

Sorry I didn't reply earlier.

I have several instances from my older game where I had "defensive hybrids are mobilizing", and nothing seemed to happen. (I'll see if I can dig it up tonight)

I suppose it is easy enough to stage it as well. Just play with hybrids on and wait until "defensive hybrids are mobilizing", and from what I have experienced, that alone is enough to reproduce it 100% of the time.

[TechSY730]

Alright. I have a save with "Defensive hybrids are mobilizing".

Wait until the exo hits (it is a 99% in the save), and around that time the "defensive hybrids are mobilizing" should come up, and, at least on the planets I have vision on, nothing seems to change with the hybrids.

This game has its origins in an older version of AI war, which is why I have past a cap of starships.
(BTW, I did ultimately win this game)

Also, I apologize for the ultra low performance profile. I had that on to "fast forward" as fast a possible. You can turn it back up to saner values after loading.

[Cinth]

Also, I apologize for the ultra low performance profile. I had that on to "fast forward" as fast a possible. You can turn it back up to saner values after loading.

~chuckle~

Have you played any saves I've posted?  UL is the only profile that I can play on in my mid-late game.  Even then, the game still barely wants to chug along.