Author Topic: Some blackshirt questions...  (Read 7151 times)

Offline Tolc

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Some blackshirt questions...
« on: June 16, 2015, 05:00:27 pm »
Just "finished" (i.e. gave up on)  my first game as Zenith (lost horribly to the krolins...thanks for asking  :P). Some question that occured to me while playing:

1) What is the purpose of the "last sonar overlay"? It just shows lots of "pollution" tiles over my explored areas with some holes here and there...
2) Is there are difference between planetary temperature (the values shown when you click on the HUD icon for temperature) and the temperature you actually see in the HUD?
3) What determines to occurence of brownouts? I was at 58000 energy left and got brownouts nevertheless.

The rest is probably stuff that I should search for and post in mantis, I think (i.e. bugs and comments on design). Just one anecdote though: I was quite shocked initially as a Civ player when I tried to "settle" near a resource with the lander and blew the resource up with the tiles surrounding the lander :p Am I the only one who did that?

Offline crazyroosterman

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Re: Some blackshirt questions...
« Reply #1 on: June 16, 2015, 05:12:00 pm »
Just "finished" (i.e. gave up on)  my first game as Zenith (lost horribly to the krolins...thanks for asking  :P). Some question that occured to me while playing:

1) What is the purpose of the "last sonar overlay"? It just shows lots of "pollution" tiles over my explored areas with some holes here and there...
2) Is there are difference between planetary temperature (the values shown when you click on the HUD icon for temperature) and the temperature you actually see in the HUD?
3) What determines to occurence of brownouts? I was at 58000 energy left and got brownouts nevertheless.

The rest is probably stuff that I should search for and post in mantis, I think (i.e. bugs and comments on design). Just one anecdote though: I was quite shocked initially as a Civ player when I tried to "settle" near a resource with the lander and blew the resource up with the tiles surrounding the lander :p Am I the only one who did that?
1 not sure what your talking about I've never heard of a last sonar overlay my self unless you've got it mixed up with the pollution over lay if not then that's probably a bug 2 nope not at all 3  you are probably going to have to take what I say here with a pinch of salt but I believe that the hud is being misleading you see you have positive energy because the buildings that usually consume energy have been shut down by you not having enough energy when you started the turns the energy hud in that particular instance is very misleading 4 personally that's never been a thing for me after the exact same thing happens when you settle over a resource in civ(5 at least any way).
c.r

Offline kasnavada

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Re: Some blackshirt questions...
« Reply #2 on: June 16, 2015, 05:18:40 pm »
You should not have brownout with remaining power, AFAIK. That sounds like a bug.

Offline Tolc

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Re: Some blackshirt questions...
« Reply #3 on: June 16, 2015, 05:23:27 pm »
No, it's not the pollution overlay, it's the last one from the selection list.

Well, the values differ though. If I have a temperature value of "12h" in the HUD and I end the turn a different value appears in the table of past temperatures. Not a big deal, I was just wondering if there's a planetary temperature and a local one.

Maybe I didn't pay attention, but I'm quite sure that I had a similar energy balance before the brownouts happened. I'll have to keep my eyes open in the next game.

Well, in Civ 5 you even get a resource if you settle on it (IIRC), but here it was just lost in the "blast radius" of the lander. As I didn't land the lander right on top of it, but next to it.

@kasnavada: Unfortunately I don't have a save from that incident. Maybe I can reproduce it in the next game.

Offline kasnavada

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Re: Some blackshirt questions...
« Reply #4 on: June 16, 2015, 05:30:47 pm »
About the resource, I think there is a mantis about a warning when landing on it. But not in the game yet. However, in SBR they don't actually work like that. I think Chris would want you to find out - but in case I'll put a spoiler.

Spoiler for Hiden:
To work a resource, first you need an extractor (deep mine, extraction facility, sea mining platform, harvest facility), then the resource points to the building where it's actually going to be used.

Most animals for example are "extracted" by harvest facilities and "used" by guidhall. When you build a guildhall you can select resources you've extracted. And then the guildhall (or similar building for other resources, written in the tooltip) actually are the one giving the adjacency bonus.

IMO it's unnecessarily complex, but I don't really have a "simpler" solution to enable using resources with the adjacency system currently.


The "second" resource:
Natural wonders don't have the same system, and simply give their bonus where they are. There is a warning AFAIK when placing stuff on it.
« Last Edit: June 16, 2015, 05:33:07 pm by kasnavada »

Offline crazyroosterman

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Re: Some blackshirt questions...
« Reply #5 on: June 16, 2015, 05:32:29 pm »
No, it's not the pollution overlay, it's the last one from the selection list.

Well, the values differ though. If I have a temperature value of "12h" in the HUD and I end the turn a different value appears in the table of past temperatures. Not a big deal, I was just wondering if there's a planetary temperature and a local one.

Maybe I didn't pay attention, but I'm quite sure that I had a similar energy balance before the brownouts happened. I'll have to keep my eyes open in the next game.

Well, in Civ 5 you even get a resource if you settle on it (IIRC), but here it was just lost in the "blast radius" of the lander. As I didn't land the lander right on top of it, but next to it.

@kasnavada: Unfortunately I don't have a save from that incident. Maybe I can reproduce it in the next game.
1 well that definitely sounds like a bug then 2 there shouldn't be a different between the hud and  the hud screen sounds like a bug to me 3 if you could replicate this and give us the save file of it then that would be wonderful 4 I swear I thought founding city's on resources destroyed them I guess its just me getting old and forgetting things again.
c.r

Offline Tolc

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Re: Some blackshirt questions...
« Reply #6 on: June 16, 2015, 06:06:53 pm »
I'll mantis them tomorrow then (late at night here, concentration low...)

@kasnavada: Yeah, a warning would go a long way with that. Thanks for the resource info, I already found out most of it (didn't get far enough for a guildhall in my first game, so that one was new).

Quote
I guess its just me getting old and forgetting things again.
Could as well be me ;)

Offline Gwmngilfen

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Re: Some blackshirt questions...
« Reply #7 on: June 16, 2015, 07:34:43 pm »
Spoiler for Hiden:
To work a resource, first you need an extractor (deep mine, extraction facility, sea mining platform, harvest facility), then the resource points to the building where it's actually going to be used.

Most animals for example are "extracted" by harvest facilities and "used" by guidhall. When you build a guildhall you can select resources you've extracted. And then the guildhall (or similar building for other resources, written in the tooltip) actually are the one giving the adjacency bonus.

IMO it's unnecessarily complex, but I don't really have a "simpler" solution to enable using resources with the adjacency system currently.


The "second" resource:
Natural wonders don't have the same system, and simply give their bonus where they are. There is a warning AFAIK when placing stuff on it.

Aha, that's interesting - I didn't figure that out at all in my first run through. I thought all the resources worked like the wonders. I don't find the idea too complicated, but perhaps guiding the player during the eventual tutorials should be noted down. Do you know if there's a mantis for it, or shall I log it?

Offline x4000

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Re: Some blackshirt questions...
« Reply #8 on: June 16, 2015, 08:01:59 pm »
Couple of things from a quick scan:

1. The last sonar overlay is a pretty useless overlay right now, it really needs to be updated.  It's a polish thing.

2. The planetary temperature is just a rounding issue, I think it's already in mantis.

3. The brownouts with excessive power were part of a bug that was fixed in 0.894.

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Offline kasnavada

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Re: Some blackshirt questions...
« Reply #9 on: June 17, 2015, 01:31:59 am »
Quote
Aha, that's interesting - I didn't figure that out at all in my first run through. I thought all the resources worked like the wonders. I don't find the idea too complicated, but perhaps guiding the player during the eventual tutorials should be noted down. Do you know if there's a mantis for it, or shall I log it?

I don't know of a mantis for this, but I don't think it matters if there are duplicates ;). So go ahead !

Offline Tolc

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Re: Some blackshirt questions...
« Reply #10 on: June 17, 2015, 07:58:53 am »
Couple of things from a quick scan:

1. The last sonar overlay is a pretty useless overlay right now, it really needs to be updated.  It's a polish thing.

2. The planetary temperature is just a rounding issue, I think it's already in mantis.

3. The brownouts with excessive power were part of a bug that was fixed in 0.894.

Thanks!

Ah, thanks for clearing that up. So I don't need to mantis them, good.

Quote
Aha, that's interesting - I didn't figure that out at all in my first run through. I thought all the resources worked like the wonders. I don't find the idea too complicated, but perhaps guiding the player during the eventual tutorials should be noted down. Do you know if there's a mantis for it, or shall I log it?

Yeah, same here. Go ahead :)

Offline Tolc

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Re: Some blackshirt questions...
« Reply #11 on: June 17, 2015, 09:28:34 am »
Well, how much of a rounding issue are we talking about here, because there's quite a difference between +31h (HUD display) and -3h (logged value after hitting "end turn") which I have in my second Zenith game?

P.S.: Just out of curiosity: What does the "h" stand for, anyway?

Offline Gwmngilfen

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Re: Some blackshirt questions...
« Reply #12 on: June 17, 2015, 10:52:22 am »
Quote
Aha, that's interesting - I didn't figure that out at all in my first run through. I thought all the resources worked like the wonders. I don't find the idea too complicated, but perhaps guiding the player during the eventual tutorials should be noted down. Do you know if there's a mantis for it, or shall I log it?

I don't know of a mantis for this, but I don't think it matters if there are duplicates ;). So go ahead !

Good point! #17284 logged.

Offline Gwmngilfen

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Re: Some blackshirt questions...
« Reply #13 on: June 17, 2015, 10:53:27 am »
Well, how much of a rounding issue are we talking about here, because there's quite a difference between +31h (HUD display) and -3h (logged value after hitting "end turn") which I have in my second Zenith game?

P.S.: Just out of curiosity: What does the "h" stand for, anyway?

My assumption was that the HUD shows the absolute temperature, but the dialog shows the change in temperature for that turn. It's not spelled out anywhere though, I don't think.

Offline Tolc

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Re: Some blackshirt questions...
« Reply #14 on: June 17, 2015, 06:35:07 pm »
Well, how much of a rounding issue are we talking about here, because there's quite a difference between +31h (HUD display) and -3h (logged value after hitting "end turn") which I have in my second Zenith game?

P.S.: Just out of curiosity: What does the "h" stand for, anyway?

My assumption was that the HUD shows the absolute temperature, but the dialog shows the change in temperature for that turn. It's not spelled out anywhere though, I don't think.

That could be the case, yes. I'll have a look ingame.