Author Topic: Couple of experiences/wishes/possible bugs?  (Read 8068 times)

Offline Gott365

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Couple of experiences/wishes/possible bugs?
« on: September 15, 2020, 07:22:01 pm »
Hey there, better prepare for a lot of text, title´s content is at the bottom half :)

So, I´ve been doing a campaign for about 2 weeks now, 16.5 h in right now, and wanted to share a couple of things:

First: I absolutely LOVE how smooth the game is running, even when you overdo a little. The performance is rarely dropping below 50% at it´s current state, and was at a stable 95-100% for most of the playtime. But a few things to the game I´m running:

Realistic map with 160 planets
AI (Full Ensemble) on 7, with allied Scourge on 6
2 Marauder factions and Human Resistance at 10
Risk Analyzers and Astro Trains at 10/7
Dark and Fallen Spire at 5
Nanocaust on 7 (from the start)
Macrophages on 6
2 Devourer Golems and the Zenith trader
Player-allied Scourge at 8 (because I hadn´t had them as allies before)
The Spire Rises and the Spire Railgun mod enabled

So you can already see, lots of stuff going on. I like to test the boundaries of games, can´t help it  :)

Like I said, I´m 16+ h in, so a few things have happened so far:
Nanocaust got wiped out already a few hours in.  I´m at 6 Spire cities, tamed a few macrophages (also Spire-infested), and conquered about half of the map. The AI is left on a different branch, only connected via a single chain of planets, kind of cut off by the Dark Spire. They did enter conquest mode at some point due to the Nanocaust battling the AI I assume, didn´t see that happening for the most part, but I´ve cleared my branch of the galaxy of them. They are standing in my way, though, with a wopping 400k strength, which is just sitting on the planet basically doing nothing but wiping exo strikes, that come in every so often. Their Vengeance Generator sits at 2391% conversion ratio, and doesn´t bother releasing single ships anymore, but stacks of them :)

Anyway, that´s the current state. Both AI and me getting blocked by this huge force. Unfortunately, I´ve now run into a thing, that is breaking the save for me, which is I cannot hack the Ven Gen vulnerable, because the hack just continues. The last save included has the hack sitting at -483 seconds, so 933 seconds in total, which is the major reason for this post.

It might have something to do with the recent updates, although skimming through the patchnotes didn´t reveal anything specific to this, or it might be an actual bug, or just due to the amount of stuff being in that save already, I can´t tell.

Well, I´ve already written enough, so here´s the short version of what the title´s saying:


Possible Bugs (Savegames and log are added, "16" is before starting the hack, "18" is at -483 secs):

Tried hacking their Ven Gen vulnerable, hack just continues after reaching 0 (last save it´s at -483 secs)
Due to many stacks and units stacking, sometimes a 100 stack of units would disappear when damaged a bit, to merge into another stack on the other side of the planet map
Couple of "Long range planning" errors for Macrophages (Tamed ones, too, iirc)
Couple of "Energy reached negative value for stacks" errors, but there are also A LOT of stacks
The 2 Officer fleets I´ve seen in battle so far (Lone Spire Frigate and Botnet Golem) are neither actively kiting nor going for enemies in pursuit mode, only when given direct order
Spire fleets can be given order to load/unload, which makes them go to their main ship

Weird thing:

Besides sitting at 400k+ strength, Dark Spire is just sitting at it´s planet, doing basically nothing on the map, although severely outnumbering both directions in strength, even after Vengeance Strikes
Only attacked me once earlier, with like half it´s fleet at that point (80k or so), when I hacked another Ven Gen, smashed through 3 planets, and then just sat on that one, letting me slowly wittle them down. They didn´t attack me when hacking other Ven Gens, or Conquest Ven Gens aswell, just once.


Other suggestions/wishes/personal preferences/quality of life things:

if given order to attack a stack, units should wipe the whole stack first, atm they just kill one ships of the stack and then move on with their targeting routine
let ships kite again as they used to in AIW 1 (I remember it that way, at least), meaning they should kite away from their closest enemy, not from their target
have a third option for zombies as is, and make an option for them being a lot more aggressive than they are atm, I don´t really need zombies guarding my planets 15 hops away from the next enemy
give the Dyson sphere some protection against Conquest Ven Gens from the Dark Spire, like priority for the Dyson on those even when antagonized, or sth like that
some sort of "global target" system for your allies, like which planet you would like them to support you on or them to attack independently
if allied units have zombifying weapons, they should turn into player-allied zombies

And that´s all I can think of atm, might edit some more, we shall see.


Anyway, thank you for taking your time to read this, and thank you dev(s) for yet another great game :)

Offline BadgerBadger

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Re: Couple of experiences/wishes/possible bugs?
« Reply #1 on: September 16, 2020, 12:35:19 pm »
The "make VG vulnerable" hack should be working again on 2.507 (not released yet)

Offline Gott365

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Re: Couple of experiences/wishes/possible bugs?
« Reply #2 on: September 16, 2020, 07:07:49 pm »
Glad to hear that :D

Btw, I´ve also tried "Granting Shipline", didn´t work either, I assume that´ll be the same fix?

Offline BadgerBadger

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Re: Couple of experiences/wishes/possible bugs?
« Reply #3 on: September 17, 2020, 02:10:13 am »
The Grant Ship Line hack should spawn ships once the next patch comes out.

The Dark Spire should be more active in the next patch too

Also, your comment "The 2 Officer fleets I´ve seen in battle so far (Lone Spire Frigate and Botnet Golem) are neither actively kiting nor going for enemies in pursuit mode, only when given direct order"

There is a setting for "Flagship Movement Mode" in the fleets tab. You might want to set your Lone Wolves to "Roam if Instructed" and that should hopefully make them better for you,
« Last Edit: September 17, 2020, 11:07:32 pm by BadgerBadger »

Offline Gott365

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Re: Couple of experiences/wishes/possible bugs?
« Reply #4 on: September 21, 2020, 06:40:45 pm »
Hey there,

just opened the last savegame again, worked like a charm :D. It was kinda hilarious to see 100k Dark Spire ships just waltz through the AI, but I noticed something else:

First, the stack´s damage output seemed way too low (see "19" for a huge stack amidst the AI and basically throwing wet noodels, and "20" for 2 stacks of 600ish Spectors, doing 60k damage per shot on a turret). Second, the "stuttering" of stacks continued, a big stack of 600 is releasing 200 or so ships, they travel a little, and then get stacked back into the big one (also save "19"), thus basically dodging quite some attacks (it seemed, at least). I´ve also noticed the ship numbers jumping up and down by like 10 on 10k Eidolons when stacking.

Edit: It also happened to my own ships, I reduced the number required to start stacking, and sometimes, usually when unloading, they plop out as a big stack and divide into smaller stacks, that are not highlighted anymore, when the original big stack still is.

On a positive note: I didn´t get the "energy got negative on stacking" error yet :D

Edit: I did receive another error, though, UI-related from what I can tell, see the log :)
« Last Edit: September 21, 2020, 07:12:52 pm by Gott365 »

Offline BadgerBadger

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Re: Couple of experiences/wishes/possible bugs?
« Reply #5 on: September 22, 2020, 02:44:29 pm »
I've tweaked the squad stacking/splitting code. If you still have problems then please open a mantis report and upload a save game (and say which planet I can view the problem on)

Offline BadgerBadger

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Re: Couple of experiences/wishes/possible bugs?
« Reply #6 on: September 23, 2020, 01:09:46 am »
I've also fixed at least one code path with hunter fleet units suiciding.

Offline Gott365

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Re: Couple of experiences/wishes/possible bugs?
« Reply #7 on: November 13, 2020, 06:56:47 am »
Hey again,

the "jittering" is still there, mainly noticeable on large stacks of frigates or other stuff with lots of HP, but also for strikecraft still, usually under heavy load of the game (80% and below), but sometimes at 100% aswell. bug report is written, but here´s the stuff aswell, just in case ^^