Progress update on the 17th.

[x4000]

Hey guys,

So this gui stuff is taking me longer than I expected, although it's definitely worth it.  It will be a relief to have this done, but it's not going to be until Monday that it's fully ready.

Part of the delay is that I've actually had some personal issues come up in the last day and a half that have practically cut my working time in half.  Not fun stuff at all, but ultimately passing I think.  Anyway, so that slowed me up a lot.

But I haven't gone anywhere, and after the GUI I'm going to be digging into the next meat.  Keith is only semi-available this past week and for the next week and a half as well, so things are slower on his front, too, which you probably picked up on.  After he's back to full speed, and when I'm not distracted with the GUI and this other stuff, we should see much more rapid progress.

[crazyroosterman]

fair enough thanks for informing us that a physical melody of some sort hasn't shut down your nervous system and killed you(feel free to take as you need Chris)   ps 1 delicious cookie to the person who gets that reference

[Pumpkin]

No cookie for me. But thank a lot for keeping us informed. I hope nothing dramatic happened to you; I understand you prefer keep it personal, I just hope.

So the GUI upgrade we voted for redshirts wasn't released? Sorry to ask this silly question but I was AFK this first half week. Then the blueshirts would have the new GUI to start from, and us redshirts would have to relearn it? (Not a big matter, I voted for dropping the redshirts in the DF-GUI, just wanted to be sure)

[TheVampire100]

Most people wanted to see the old GUI compared to the new one (also in favour of getting the game earlier), so yeah, we test currenty the old one and have to "relearn" it when the new one comes out.

[ptarth]

So, Chris is out for the day, but I had a brief chat and said he is okay with us doing a little modding on this. That being the case, some information followed by a fix to the disease problem.

Your SBR install folder is probably located somewhere similar to: C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Stars Beyond Reach
The game actually reads some of the parameters for things from .xlxs (files). That means we can mod those files and it will affect the game. You have to restart the game, but any changes made to the files will affect both new and current games. If you switch back or replace the modded files it will likewise change any loaded saves.

The data files are in: C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Stars Beyond Reach\RuntimeData\Configuration

The files should be straightforward. I haven't done a comprehensive listing of the fields, but it isn't bad. There are other fields that are not listed in the files, but I don't have that list either.

So, how to fix diseases. The solution is the CDC (Disease Control building), available from Epidemiology.

CDC does work. However, the impact is not very big and suffers from some other issues.

My understanding of how disease works is as follows:
Each disease has a Severity from 1 to 100 (100 is the worst).
Each CDC contributes 1 vaccine point.
Each CDC requires 400? people to run it.
When a disease hits, you will suffer 5% or so deaths each turn it seems (per disease?).
To "cure" a disease you need to accumulative (what seems to be) a number of vaccine points equal to the disease Severity.
However, your CDC will become unmanned very quickly, and due to deaths and the points don't accumulate. The average disease has a 50 severity, so if I'm correct it would take 50 turns to cure with a single CDC. The death rate from disease is currently too high to manage it. However Chris is changing it all, so it doesn't matter.

I have a save where I get AlveolarDecay on turn 165 every time. I am able to fight it off by turn 167 using 11 CDCs. The Severity of AlveolarDecay is 22. I probably could test this by building 22 CDCs and seeing if I get over it in one turn, but Chris has direct access so not much point. I provide this so others can have an idea of how to deal with it.
Installation Instructions
In the attached zip file are the original files to be kept as backups and the new modded files that should help with the disease problem.
Copy them into your data file directory, overwriting the files there now. If you update the game, it will delete the files.
The fix:
Step 1.  Reduce the cost of Epidemiology to something reasonable (600).
Step 2.  Reduce the cost, energy requirement, and employment requirements (10000,10000,10).
Step 3.  Reduce the disease severity by a factor of 10.
Step 4.  Reduce Stock Exchange and International Banks from 60 times as much crime as a bank to just 2 times.

You should still get diseases. They should still be annoying. They should not destroy you anymore.
Pollution is also kept more in check. Build all pollution buildings to the right of everything else, put hazmats to the right of the pollution buildings, and keep a few scattered throughout the rest of your town. Note most advanced buildings produce smog.
Crime is also kept in check. Build police stations to cover EVERY building you have. Build 1-3 police stations around your Banks & Stock Exchanges.

[TheVampire100]

Thanks for the tip,I will try it out later this day (or tomorrow if I don't come to it anymore). I wonder if Chris made it on purpose in these files so the game is easier modabble. Or it's just easier for him to change stuff.
Maybe I will experiment a little with the files to see how stuff is affected (also to understand some game mechanics).

[Captain Jack]

Thanks for the tempfix. I didn't think that pollution would be the silent killer this early in the game.

Chris, I want you to know that as much as I'm going to be taking the game to task I really do like what's here. I'll have more words over the weekend, when I've had the chance to sit down and play some.

[ptarth]

Thanks for the tip,I will try it out later this day (or tomorrow if I don't come to it anymore). I wonder if Chris made it on purpose in these files so the game is easier modabble. Or it's just easier for him to change stuff.
Maybe I will experiment a little with the files to see how stuff is affected (also to understand some game mechanics).

Most likely a bit of both. If you have all your parameters in one place, they are easier to change without having to go to a large amount of trouble. When the files aren't compiled it makes it easier for others to alter them as well.

[Teal_Blue]

The fix looks cool, but really was thinking that the 'flow' of the game changes by reducing the severity of the diseases, and perhaps it isn't reducing the diseases that is really that important, but how the diseases force me as a player to do something else. Like maybe establish satellite colonies out from the main city? Or perhaps cut back the size of my city to sort of amputate the diseased parts of the city?

Anyway, i was trying to look at how the game currently is set up and how that seems to push or pull me as a player in certain directions according to what i am doing, or what other races are doing, or what the world is doing at the time. Seems each of those could be quite different and produce different results. Which makes things interesting if we have a variety of states.

Then again, perhaps i am mis-reading the reasons for the fix, it may be just the perfect thing. But i am just not sure that changing all the values so i don't have to worry about diseases sort of robs me of sweating out putting all my resources into expanding and then getting smacked with a disease somewhere along the way, and knowing it is a serious thing.    And wondering if i can make it, or what i will have to sacrifice to try and stay alive.   

I'm probably being overly dramatic here,   I hope not, but i rather like the feeling sometimes of scrambling, haha, it helps that i am usually a noob at these things and am scrambling anyway.   

It does make for interesting games though. 

Thanks for listening,
-Teal

 

[TheVampire100]

In the future there will be new ways to fight diseases. Chris told me this on Mantis. He said we will be able to put the city under quarantine so infection of diseases does not spread anymore, we can cure sick people or they just die until the whole city is safe again so you can release the quarantine.
The main poin of the new system will be that you will cut off the sick population of the healthy one and so secure that not the whole city will fall, just the sick ones. How this will play out will we see when it is released but I'm sure it makes stuff like this easier to handle.

CDCs will probably help to cure the infected population instead of just letting them die. Maybe that's also the reason why they don't work the way now as they are intended.

[x4000]

No cookie for me. But thank a lot for keeping us informed. I hope nothing dramatic happened to you; I understand you prefer keep it personal, I just hope.

Thanks very much.  It wasn't anything too dramatic, and it wasn't directly to me.  It was a lot of stuff that had to be sorted out but is all worked out now.  People are fun. 

So the GUI upgrade we voted for redshirts wasn't released? Sorry to ask this silly question but I was AFK this first half week. Then the blueshirts would have the new GUI to start from, and us redshirts would have to relearn it? (Not a big matter, I voted for dropping the redshirts in the DF-GUI, just wanted to be sure)

Correct, the new GUI came as version 0.800.

Chris, I want you to know that as much as I'm going to be taking the game to task I really do like what's here. I'll have more words over the weekend, when I've had the chance to sit down and play some.

Thanks!  That means a lot.  Especially when you wrote this there was a ton for the game to be taken to task for.  There still are a load of things, but it's shaping up pretty quickly overall.  The fact that people are enjoying themselves even when the doors are on backwards and the windows won't roll down so you get CO poisoning and die is a really good sign.