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[xenoargh]

theres one thing I'm curious about: how does the game work in terms of the player goal? Is there an ending or win-state?

Yes, there's a win-state, in the sense that if all of the empires you're unfriendly with are dead, you've effectively won.  Now that players can capture Stations, it's a lot more interactive, which is fun.

No, there isn't a pat-on-the-back announcement dialog for achieving that, yet.  I'll have to think about how to go about that after I've gotten done with the last big slog- writing a newbie-tutorial system that explains the basics (like how to mine asteroids and all that jazz).

I haven't gotten to AI / strategic / diplomatic stuff yet, so that would be a bit premature (since there is literally no way to make peace with Factions you've wronged, ever, and the AI players don't create strategies or anything yet, although that's coming).

[xenoargh]

Working on the memory issue via using abstract "fleets".  I think it's going to be remarkably easy to get this done, so I'm going to try and knock this out and see what it does to memory requirements (I'm guessing that it'll be a big deal).

[xenoargh]

Got it done.

Wow.

Alex, 99% of the memory overhead of your game past base load is Fleet data storage.  It isn't AI state machine stuff, it isn't SectorEntityTokens, etc.

I need to do a couple more tests, but I'm pretty sure that even 32-bit users will be able to run with quite a few Systems now.

[xenoargh]

Proof that memory optimization via abstraction can really be a big deal for this game.

Can run with this many Fleets / Systems with 1.5 GB memory (and we're only hitting 1.1GB here, we just need that to load / save). 

I can't double that load, so I'm nowhere near "hundreds of systems", but I've got hundreds of Fleets (each System has about 15 Fleets active); there is a certain amount of data inherent to CampaignFleetAPI objects and their AI state machines that can't be avoided without engine tinkering.



Anyhow, I'm still not sure I got under the 512MB default RAM cap for newbie users at 5 Systems, but close.

[Annex]

Glad to hear you're enjoying the mod

You can build Stations when you have enough Credits; simply dock with any planet and it's obvious what to do

Anyhow... working on a newbie-guide today, I got the Station-capturing mechanics working well last night and a lot of the little details are fixed

Oh awesome! Really appreciate your work on this. What stands out about this mod is the scale and ferocity of combat. In most other mods the fleets are small giving you small fights. Here on the other hand you can face off against 70 ship armadas! Although I found out that eventually even a 2048 memory limit wasnt enough for the game, ended up doubling it and saves load fine again. May want to mention that to the newcommers.

Bit more feedback:
- Leveling is a bit too easy, on most big fights ill get a level a fight. Not sure if mods can slow it down or if its game hardcoded
- On the battleships, can you change the missile slots to universal? Ive been doing that myself as I hate being forced to use 1 kind of ship if I just want beams/ballistics.
- Due to built in weapons, many of the cruisers have few customization slots. This greatly narrows down options and flexibility.

[Alex]

@xenoargh: Very cool! If that info bears out, should make expanding the size of the Sector much easier. Just the other day I tried 100+ systems (in response to this) and it didn't make much of a dent in memory, even with asteroid belts, so that seems in line with what you're finding. A hundred systems was using up about 100 megs of memory total, with all the rest of it - basically negligible.

[Annex]

Btw, the Exigency ships essentially break the balance in this mod as no other race can touch them, allowing them to bulldoze through everything. Takes 2 battleships to bring down one of their Pergon cruisers.

[xenoargh]

@Alex:  I was pretty surprised that this made as much of a difference as it did.  The way I ended up doing it was very simple, too.

Other stuff that might bear fruit (but I can't say for sure from over here):

1.  Storage of AI state-machine stuff and abstraction of the Fleet mechanics inside Systems.  Probably can save considerable memory there.
2.  Storage of inventories at Stations is probably contributing somewhat at large scales; memory growth from inventories is a slow creeping thing but basically, Stations are really big fleets and I suspect that the same issues that cause fleets to eat a lot of RAM are prevalent there as well.

I might do an experiment with that, in terms of just randomizing inventories when players visit a Station; that has positives and negatives, though.  IDK how that data's being handled, I always assumed it was just longint (type of cargo) longint (stack size) in an array per Station, since that's the most memory-saving way to do it, most likely.
3.  There's probably some overhead in OrbitalStations that will get worse as state data gets stored there (things like mission states, etc., looking towards the future).

@Annex:

1.  On the Universal mounts, I'd like more detailed feedback.  Given what's happening with missiles in the next build, where they're more deadly (and considerably more CPU efficient), I'd need more specifics before I'd want to change it.  Besides which, there are several "missile boats" in the Capital class- the Macuahuitl in particular is really quite nice for that role.

2.  The Cruisers are meant to be pretty specialized (see the Wall of Text).  There are non-specialized Cruisers that can do a lot of things, such as the Eagle, but they're generally meant to file niche roles and round out the uber-fleets.  

On the other hand, certain things are coming in the next build that will make it possible to re-task certain Cruiser designs that are kind of out-classed in late-game play.  The biggest single change is that there's a new Hull Mod, Bubble Shield, that offers a 360 shield to any ship.  The shield's low efficiency means it's not a perfect solution, but for problems like how to keep late-game Dominators relevant, it's pretty nifty.

3. I, er, killed a Pergon with a Chiron (that's a weenie little Frigate) today.  Are you saying that Exigency's just too OP in player hands (which wouldn't surprise me, at least not the Pergon), or are we talking about having trouble killing them as a player?

[Annex]

Universal mounts allow anything to be put there of that turret size, so it gives the player freedom to tweak the ships to their playstyle or wants, instead of being forced to a specific build. So im fine with a ship by default having more X or Y type of mounts to lean it towards a ballistics boat or missile boat, but having a few universal slots in the mix allows the player to either augment the ships predisposition, or turn it into a hybrid.

Im not playing Exigency, the AI is, and its wrecking the place with those ships. I have a very hard time killing them as is everyone else. So say I or the AI has a bunch of Conquest class battlecruisers which are very long and have a tiny shield arc. The moment that ship turns to expose it hull to an Exigency carrier, its torpedoes will kill it in a single volley. So the Exigency AI just fires its torps constantly waiting for the opposing AI to make a mistake, which it always will, and gets lots of kills. When carriers can kill things without even relying on their fighters to do it, you know there is a balance problem right there. As for the Pergon, it has very high armor, so when it starts getting into trouble being a lighter ship it can simply fly off out of range. This afford its hit and run tactics that other races cant do as their ships dont last long enough to be able to get out.

[xenoargh]

Exigency ships are vulnerable to beams and to some extent, EMP.

As for Universal mounts... I'll have to think about that.  The problem is, there is no way to make mounts that can take Ballistic and Missile but not Energy... so Universal mounts would potentially be quite OP, and the ships with them would have to get nerfed in other ways to compensate.

[xenoargh]

Build 7 is finally ready.  This was a big build, largely because it was some framework for things that are coming later, like making some constructive changes to the current Battle system, adding some diplomacy and AI-AI relationships and strategic stuff.

The Newbie Guide didn't quite make it, I kept getting distracted    I will finish that first for Build 8, though

• Players can now take over enemy Stations after fighting an Epic Boss Battle.
  
• Much more variety in random encounters while mining.
• Lower reward for Germanium mining.
• Big improvements in missile AI.  Missiles won't waste shots on Drones, and play is generally smoother.
• Improvements in memory usage and game load / save times; Windows XP users should be able to play the game with 8 Systems now without running into problems loading saves, provided they've assigned at least 1GB to StarSector.
• Players no longer get to see fleet compositions before engaging all the time; fleet ECM prevents the player from knowing the exact compositions at a distance.
• Various tweaks and rebalance on missiles.  The Hurricane no longer sucks, Harpoons are downright nasty, but the Reaper is a bit easier to kill with PD.
• Lots and lots of other fixes and little things under the hood.

[736b]

Code

22228 [Thread-5] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.D  - java.lang.RuntimeException: Error loading [sounds/fx/guns/exigency_rr.ogg] resource, not found in [/mnt/game/linux/starsector/./mods/Vacuum,../starfarer.res/res,CLASSPATH]

The file is named exigency_RR.ogg instead of exigency_rr.ogg, so fails to load on Linux.

[reactorcore]

What about the pat-on-the-back message after destroying every hostile faction from the game? Did that get included in the new build?

Sorry if I'm obsessive about it, its just a personally important feature that help to bring closure to a session of gameplay when a player reaches the top. If you've ever played Mechwarrior 3, at the end of a mission, upon completing all objectives, you'd get a sound played "mission succesful" and a message: "All objectives completed, mission succesful, press shift+F12 to end the game."

Or another example is when playing an old NES platformer, you go through a big adventure, beat the challenge and then get some simplistic ending saying that you've won.

Since the nature of the game is randomly generated, starting over is actually exciting and encouraged, due to different factions you can join, the methods of how you can build up your fleet and how will you fight in each battle.

Currently, if you play and reach the end, you'll have an empty feeling of the game not acknowleding your effort, which is like a feeling as if you just beat Super Mario Bros, but not getting an ending or a princess, instead you just get to hang around in an empty room with nothing to do after you took down Bowser.

So please, a simple message "All factions are defeated, you are the supreme ruler of the vacuum" with an added simple sound effect would be enough. 

[xenoargh]

I'll put that into Build 8, after I get the Newbie Guide code done

The file is named exigency_RR.ogg instead of exigency_rr.ogg, so fails to load on Linux.

Oops.  Darn case-sensitive stuff, gets me every time.  Fixed.

[Annex]

I take it the save files are not compatible between build 6 and 7? Also, preventing fleet composition from being seen really seems quite useless as everyone should be saving before a battle anyhow, so what youve done now is that players waste time attacking fleets they may not be able to handle that they would have otherwise known before hand, but now have to engage first only to find out they cant handle it. Otherwise new build seems working great so far, started new game and following same path to see if there are any glaring problems from the previous build