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RE: Thanks - 6/5/2014 1:12:47 AM

ldog

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quote:

ORIGINAL: fenrislokison
However, i'm not sure about one thing: are you sure you get the science bonus of a location if the type of your research station doesn't match the bonus type?
I mean, does it really work if you put a high tech station on a energy location for example?

I never tried before and i can't right now since i'm at work but i will asap :p

Yes, you do.
One thing I did notice though is if let's say you have one of these generic research stations at each type of bonus site but only 1 scientist with all 3 skills then you will lose the site bonus from the unmanned sites (at least if the skill bonus is higher than the site...I had some crappy sites lol).

(in reply to fenrislokison)

Post #: 61

RE: Thanks - 6/5/2014 2:27:46 AM

Spidey

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Wait, your scientist can provide all three bonuses without having access to all three kinds of labs? I did not know that. Edit: And as it turns out, I didn't know it because it's not the case.

< Message edited by Spidey -- 6/6/2014 2:13:10 PM >

(in reply to ldog)

Post #: 62

RE: Thanks - 6/6/2014 1:12:13 PM

Spidey

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I did some testing with with a +23% weapons research bonus, an energy research station, and a multi-school scientist.

Energy station with no weapons lab on weapon research bonus = no bonus at all.
Energy station with 1 weapons lab on weapon research bonus = +23% research bonus.
Triple-school scientist at energy station with 1 energy lab and 1 weapon lab = +18% weaps, +49% energy, +0% HT.
Triple-school scientist at energy station with 1 of each lab = +18% weaps, +49% energy, +23% HT.

So there you have it. A scientist needs access to at least one lab of the right kind to provide a bonus. Any kind of research station with at least one lab of the right type can provide a location bonus.

(in reply to Spidey)

Post #: 63

Suggestion for quick space port. - 6/6/2014 6:06:36 PM

mdbeebz

Posts: 2
Joined: 5/30/2014
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Hi!

as per the suggestion from this guide, i use a variation on the universal small space port. but in later game, when i need to get a space port up and running quickly, it is not quick to build. any guidelines on a quick to build, relatively secure space port?

Also, what is it, about the design of that universal space port that makes it take so long to build, is it the labs? also, is it wise to have labs on every space port?

thank you

(in reply to Bingeling)

Post #: 64

RE: Suggestion for quick space port. - 6/12/2014 11:15:15 PM

Timotheus

Posts: 481
Joined: 12/13/2013
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Hi mdbeebz.

Research is weirdly implemented in this game - read my explanation on it and also read up others guides on research.

You basically need just enough labs to be equal to or just over the total possible research for your race at that moment. Whether the labs are in spaceports, space labs OR (blowing your mind here,

) private mining bases or private ships, is up to you.

My constructors build stuff pretty quickly; it depends how many manufacturies you put on that ship I think.

< Message edited by Timotheus -- 6/13/2014 12:17:03 AM >

_____________________________

NEWBIE GUIDE Distant Worlds Universe
http://tinyurl.com/k3frrle

War in the Pacific Poradnik po Polsku
http://tinyurl.com/nxd4cesh

INSTALL WITPAE on modern PC
https://tinyurl.com/l5kr6rl

(in reply to mdbeebz)

Post #: 65

RE: Thanks - 6/12/2014 11:18:22 PM

Timotheus

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Joined: 12/13/2013
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quote:

So there you have it. A scientist needs access to at least one lab of the right kind to provide a bonus. Any kind of research station with at least one lab of the right type can provide a location bonus.

So only one lab is needed for a scientist to have his bonus in play then? Confirmed?

Cool.

_____________________________

NEWBIE GUIDE Distant Worlds Universe
http://tinyurl.com/k3frrle

War in the Pacific Poradnik po Polsku
http://tinyurl.com/nxd4cesh

INSTALL WITPAE on modern PC
https://tinyurl.com/l5kr6rl

(in reply to Spidey)

Post #: 66

RE: Thanks - 6/12/2014 11:53:37 PM

vmxa_slith

Posts: 94
Joined: 5/26/2013
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Yes I have seen that on my labs.

(in reply to Timotheus)

Post #: 67

RE: The New Guy Newbie Guide to Fully Non Automatic Man... - 6/13/2014 6:54:42 AM

BlueTemplar

Posts: 887
Joined: 4/29/2010
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Thank you for this guide, but...

700 stars with full manual control : are you CRAZY?!

I restarted a game with 100 stars, and even then, I expect it to last for several hundred hours... (though mostly, it's true, because learning how the game works takes a lot of time)

(in reply to vmxa_slith)

Post #: 68

RE: The New Guy Newbie Guide to Fully Non Automatic Man... - 6/13/2014 7:44:27 AM

fenrislokison

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my last 3 games, i went with huge galaxy (15x15), 1400 stars, plentiful colonies and 20 rivals

Its definitely not impossible to do nor is it overwhelming. You don't even have to know the game mechanics in details to succeed :)

But i have to say that nearing the end, it's more tedious than fun to gain the last 10-20% needed for a victory

All full manual of course

< Message edited by fenrislokison -- 6/13/2014 8:45:05 AM >

_____________________________

(in reply to BlueTemplar)

Post #: 69

RE: The New Guy Newbie Guide to Fully Non Automatic Man... - 6/13/2014 9:44:26 AM

BlueTemplar

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I guess I just get the most fun from understanding in detail how the game works... and then deriving strategies based on this information and playing with very high amounts of micromanagement. That's why I also restarted on highest difficulty with the harshest pirates, because I expect to be much more effective than the AI once I understand how everything is working.

(in reply to fenrislokison)

Post #: 70

RE: The New Guy Newbie Guide to Fully Non Automatic Man... - 6/13/2014 11:13:53 AM

fenrislokison

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OR i'm masochistic... still unsure about that...

(in reply to BlueTemplar)

Post #: 71

RE: The New Guy Newbie Guide to Fully Non Automatic Man... - 6/15/2014 8:02:53 AM

Timotheus

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quote:

ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar

Thank you for this guide, but...

700 stars with full manual control : are you CRAZY?!

Hyyyyyy hyyyyyy hyyyyyyeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaar :drool:

/wipes drool away and says in a voice full of gravitas:

Seriously, it is not that hard - in fact, it is easier to have it all on manual. How many fleets do you have on this many systems? 4? 5? 10? No problem to control all of them manually. Have some defensive fleets on border systems, have one Attack Fleet and one Invasion Fleet.

Constructor ships? Why have more than 5? I do not need to spam mining bases EVERYWHERE in EVERY system.

Explorers? These MUST be controlled manually for maximum effect to get to ruins ASAP because the lead programmer Eric grumble grumble hyyyyeeeeeeeaaaaa hyyyyyeeeeeeee :drool

Just check the left symbols for worlds to colonize, for research station locations and for space casinos wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee spin the wheel with your appendage, alien dude.... err.. dudedette..... say, do gizureans have different sexes..... 33 different sexes you say..... ahem... right....

In fact, in my experience, the game becomes much more tedious and annoying when ANY automation is turned on.

Edit: to that other dude, fenrislokison, who is manliness personified (not a whisker on that dude's neck!), yes, game is much more fun on full manual, but as usual in 4x games, the end game becomes tedious.

However, this game only becomes tedious on the last end stretch, perhaps the last 5% of the gameplay, while Civ IV, a game I love, becomes tedious for the last 40% (military conquest, for example, gets super tedious in modern era on any normal sized map planet).

< Message edited by Timotheus -- 6/15/2014 9:05:35 AM >

_____________________________

NEWBIE GUIDE Distant Worlds Universe
http://tinyurl.com/k3frrle

War in the Pacific Poradnik po Polsku
http://tinyurl.com/nxd4cesh

INSTALL WITPAE on modern PC
https://tinyurl.com/l5kr6rl

(in reply to BlueTemplar)

Post #: 72

RE: The New Guy Newbie Guide to Fully Non Automatic Man... - 6/15/2014 10:18:44 AM

BlueTemplar

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Hm, I'm still going to play my first real game on a 100 star 16 sectors map (I'm probably going to micromanage much more than you) - I'll consider raising the size for the next games. I'm a bit worried that Very Many Strong Respawning pirates on Extreme difficulty might have been a bit too much...

quote:

Explorers? These MUST be controlled manually for maximum effect to get to ruins ASAP because the lead programmer Eric grumble grumble hyyyyeeeeeeeaaaaa hyyyyyeeeeeeee :drool

quote:

Additional changes from 1.9.5.1:

EXPLORATION
- Exploration ships now scan for resources more quickly, moving on to next exploration target immediately once resources and ruins investigated
- increased amount of automated Exploration ships that are assigned to simply scout systems for colonization targets and ruins instead of performing full resource scan of system and all resources

Looks like he's working on these issues.

Hopefully I won't derail this discussion too much, but did you try Civ4 mods Rise of Mankind : A New Dawn 2 and Caveman to Cosmos ? I find them awesome, though C2C is perhaps a little too much...

(in reply to Timotheus)

Post #: 73

RE: The New Guy Newbie Guide to Fully Non Automatic Man... - 6/15/2014 2:41:56 PM

Icemania

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From: Australia
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Previously the most efficient approach to Exploration was to use the "move to" command, scan every Exploration ship every few game days, and manually select targets. This is a micromanagement nightmare even for players that like to play full manual but the benefits of doing so were massive.

The change Matrix have made to the Exploration Ship AI is fantastic as it means the AI is reasonably efficient at exploring individual systems. However, the AI is still pretty daft at exactly where it sends those Explorers so there is still a massive difference to full automatic. Manual control using the "explore system" command, system by system, may now be close enough to optimal, although ruin prioritisation could still be better.

< Message edited by Icemania -- 6/15/2014 3:42:33 PM >

(in reply to BlueTemplar)

Post #: 74

RE: The New Guy Newbie Guide to Fully Non Automatic Man... - 6/15/2014 5:32:29 PM

BlueTemplar

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Codeforce (they're the ones developing this game, right?) might want to look into the solutions that have been found to optimize the "travelling salesman" problem. :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_salesman_problem

(in reply to Icemania)

Post #: 75

RE: The New Guy Newbie Guide to Fully Non Automatic Man... - 6/16/2014 12:32:17 AM

ldog

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Joined: 6/3/2014
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AI still sucks very badly at exploring ruins. Passes right by them. I micromanage my first few explorers, but once I've got my immediate sector done and start cranking them out I typically set them to explore entire sectors.

(in reply to BlueTemplar)

Post #: 76

RE: The New Guy Newbie Guide to Fully Non Automatic Man... - 6/17/2014 1:08:18 PM

Icemania

Posts: 1847
Joined: 6/5/2013
From: Australia
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quote:

ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar
Codeforce (they're the ones developing this game, right?) might want to look into the solutions that have been found to optimize the "travelling salesman" problem. :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_salesman_problem

I'm sure there are already aware of it ... it's rather well known. Maybe some of the Approximation Algorithms are useful but Exact Solutions would slow the game down to a crawl.

(in reply to BlueTemplar)

Post #: 77

RE: The New Guy Newbie Guide to Fully Non Automatic Man... - 6/17/2014 2:46:00 PM

fenrislokison

Posts: 71
Joined: 6/2/2014
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Timotheus

Edit: to that other dude, fenrislokison, who is manliness personified (not a whisker on that dude's neck!)

Maaaacho macho maaaaaan! I waaant to be a macho maaaaaaan!

(in reply to Timotheus)

Post #: 78

RE: The New Guy Newbie Guide to Fully Non Automatic Man... - 6/17/2014 3:24:57 PM

Chet Guiles

Posts: 267
Joined: 6/14/2002
From: Southern CA
Status: offline

quote:

QUESTION FOR EXPERTS: Game gives me an option to actually retrofit a gas mining/mining station; I assume that it does not work as it is a Private Sector Base?

ANSWER:

It does work. You can redesign private sector stuff and the retrofits take place as supply and constructors are available. I"m not an "expert" (but have taken part in some beta testing), however I arm the crap out of my mining stations and gas mining stations -- surprises the heck out of pirates when they come raiding.

(in reply to Timotheus)

Post #: 79

RE: The New Guy Newbie Guide to Fully Non Automatic Man... - 6/17/2014 8:18:22 PM

Gregorovitch55

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quote:

ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar

Codeforce (they're the ones developing this game, right?) might want to look into the solutions that have been found to optimize the "travelling salesman" problem. :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_salesman_problem

Yeah, one of the problems with games like this is you can't really use the best algorithms for any sort of spacial awareness type stuff on the whole, it's just too expensive because you've got potentially hundreds of ships to deal with simultaneously. You have to use very, very basic algorithms that work, sort of, most of the time, but cost next to nothing to run.

Famous example of this is X3's autopilot algorithm, aka the autopillock. It works approximately like this:

1. Plot vector to target.
2. If obstruction detected for first time ahead within 1Km, turn 90 Deg in random direction, proceed for 1Km, store evasion vector chosen with timeout and go back to step 1.
3. If obstruction detected ahead and previous evasion timeout still running, turn 90 deg to on stored evasion vector, proceed for 1Km, reset timeout and go back to step 1.
4. If at any time obstruction detected ahead within 1Km on evasion vector, kill timeout and go back to step 2.

There are many hilarious results from this algorithm, hilarious so long as you have a recent save handy that is, but it is dirt cheap and it does work 99% of the time. Trouble is we humans are very good at understanding 3D spacial relationships and the player can see see the whacking great asteroid sitting directly in the path to the space station they want to dock at and can't understand why the autopilot doesn't just turn 5 Deg to port and avoid it all together instead of flying straight at the thing at full speed and suddenly, sickeningly, veering at 90 Deg at the last moment (if you're lucky that is) followed by a further series of sickening 90 Deg turns as the ship keeps turning back into the rock face to try again and again in vain to get round the damned thing.

Anyways, an i7 doesn't have 100 billion node neural network trained for billions of years to do the job unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately if half the sci-fi cannon is to be believed).

< Message edited by Gregorovitch55 -- 6/17/2014 9:25:49 PM >

(in reply to BlueTemplar)

Post #: 80

RE: The New Guy Newbie Guide to Fully Non Automatic Man... - 6/17/2014 9:20:50 PM

Tormodino

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I know very little about coding, but could this problem be partially offset by weighting decisions differently? The number of ships moving around on the DW map seems excessive at times. If there were, not necessarily dramatically so, fewer objects moving around and performing the same tasks, wouldn't the number of calculations also be fewer?

Too many objects competing for the same algorithm considerations generally limit the effectiveness of each solution, do they not?
Not so much a solution as perhaps an alleviation of the computing problem could be to somehow throttle the number of objects performing the relevant tasks in the game.

(in reply to Gregorovitch55)

Post #: 81

RE: The New Guy Newbie Guide to Fully Non Automatic Man... - 6/17/2014 9:26:44 PM

FingNewGuy

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quote:

Anyways, an i7 doesn't have 100 billion node neural network trained for billions of years to do the job unfortunately

Nothing human has been trained for billions of years.

(in reply to Tormodino)

Post #: 82

RE: The New Guy Newbie Guide to Fully Non Automatic Man... - 6/17/2014 10:05:02 PM

Gregorovitch55

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quote:

ORIGINAL: FingNewGuy

quote:

Anyways, an i7 doesn't have 100 billion node neural network trained for billions of years to do the job unfortunately

Nothing human has been trained for billions of years.

Well, since the Cambrian 600 million years ago really, billions is an exaggeration - the first multi-cellular species in the Cambrian started the process of building navigation systems and we've just inherited them.

(in reply to FingNewGuy)

Post #: 83

RE: The New Guy Newbie Guide to Fully Non Automatic Man... - 6/17/2014 10:05:52 PM

Tormodino

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I love the way you think :D

(in reply to Gregorovitch55)

Post #: 84

RE: The New Guy Newbie Guide to Fully Non Automatic Man... - 6/17/2014 10:09:32 PM

FingNewGuy

Posts: 183
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quote:

Well, since the Cambrian 600 million years ago really, billions is an exaggeration - the first multi-cellular species in the Cambrian started the process of building navigation systems and we've just inherited them.

I hoped that's what you were getting at. But, yeah.

(in reply to Tormodino)

Post #: 85

RE: The New Guy Newbie Guide to Fully Non Automatic Man... - 6/17/2014 10:34:08 PM

Gregorovitch55

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Tormodino

I know very little about coding, but could this problem be partially offset by weighting decisions differently? The number of ships moving around on the DW map seems excessive at times. If there were, not necessarily dramatically so, fewer objects moving around and performing the same tasks, wouldn't the number of calculations also be fewer?

Too many objects competing for the same algorithm considerations generally limit the effectiveness of each solution, do they not?
Not so much a solution as perhaps an alleviation of the computing problem could be to somehow throttle the number of objects performing the relevant tasks in the game.

I think one problem is players are very sensitive to the AI "cheating", this issue of exploration/scout ships in space 4X being a well known example. I seem to remember a big rumpus between players and Stardock over GalCiv2's AI scouting algorithms, which IIRC did pretty much what you are suggesting originally: it sent it's scouts flying around for show, mostly, and built as many colony ships as it could and sent them straight for the colonisable planets the location of which, obviously, the program knew. Needless to say players took an extremely dim view of this accusing Stardock of flagrant cheating on a par with early Civ games generating doom stacks out of thin air one hex outside the player's FOW. I seem to recall Stardock publishing extended patch notes on exactly how the "latest" AI routines for handling exploration and colonisation worked, down to C++ function names etc, to counter this charge.

Also I think part of the charm of DW, and indeed X3, is the sense of a huge living breathing universe you get from knowing there really are thousands of individual ships out there going about their business even if you can't see them all the time. It's the sort of immersion people are looking for in a sandbox simulation and i guess that's more important in the end than a few shaky exploration or autopilot algorithms.

(in reply to Tormodino)

Post #: 86

RE: The New Guy Newbie Guide to Fully Non Automatic Man... - 6/17/2014 10:52:51 PM

Tormodino

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Good point, but I was not suggesting giving the ai knowledge of the map. I was more pointing towards making the number of objects in the game fewer. 12 exploration ships seem to be the sweet spot. These are not such an issue. The fact that there are thousands of actual "travelling salesmen" on the map, however, must make the algorithm cringe. If the private sector ships were on average better armed, better protected, bigger and possibly travelling in armed convoys (private sector fleets), would this not necessitate less spamming of ships since their survivability would increase and the neccesity to constantly reevaluate their state would be diminished?

The mechanics for making the private sector have fleets is already in place for empires and pirate factions. Couldn't the same logic be applied to create a smaller and more cpu-manageable private sector? I might be off mark, but this seems for me to go directly to the issue of ship spam and optimizing the movement of assets in game. Not so?

(in reply to Gregorovitch55)

Post #: 87

RE: The New Guy Newbie Guide to Fully Non Automatic Man... - 6/18/2014 12:03:36 AM

Gregorovitch55

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I think the vast bulk of ship movements in the game are simply of the "Fly there, shoot that" or "fly there, deliver, that" in response to events or circumstances where the flight end points are known. The exploration thing is different and because it does noticeably worse than we can everyone talks about it. If you scan this java program for solving the Traveling salesperson problem the scale of the problem becomes clearer:

http://www.sanfoundry.com/java-program-implement-traveling-salesman-problem-using-nearest-neighbour-algorithm/

They key is that there are two nested while loops in the main function, TSP. In the example you have 9 cities and the corresponding 9X9 matrix of distances to work with. So it loops 81 or 72 or 100 times, dunno, haven't looked that hard, but it could probably do that quicker than you could notice if you ran it. However in DW we have up to 1400 starts each with maybe 10 planets and moons. So our distances matrix is 14,000*14,000 = 196 million loops. It might finish that by the time you finished the weekly shop, or maybe by tomorrow morning. And that's for one scout. Let's limit each of the 50 or so factions to five scouts each and we keep the total down to 49 billion loops.

Sure, they'll be a lot of optimizations one could do to this, but basically we're not even remotely in the ball park of an acceptable game algorithm here, this approach is a bust - we need something to decide where each explorer goes next more or less instantly, we need something like the autopilot algorithm from X3 above, two or three simple computations, hopefully one, but almost always less than five, loop per tick. A completely different approach to the problem.

Whatever we come up with it won't work anything like as well as the TSP solution and people will laugh at it on the forums, but if the explorers go explore and they visit practically all of the planets and moons they are supposed in whatever order, we'll call that a major result under the circumstances.

But to answer your question directly, when you find a really, really simple algorithm something like that autopilot one to do this, whether you run it on 10 ships or 100 is immaterial really 'cos it'll do it so fast the player won't notice, so you might as well have 100.

(in reply to Tormodino)

Post #: 88

RE: The New Guy Newbie Guide to Fully Non Automatic Man... - 6/18/2014 12:11:07 AM

Tormodino

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Okeydokey. I'll just have to take your word for it. I simply do not know enough about this to make a counter-argument.
What it boils down to is that a simulation on the scale of DW must function somewhat similar (read:quick and dirty) to the way it is currently set up to actually function as a game?

(in reply to Gregorovitch55)

Post #: 89

RE: The New Guy Newbie Guide to Fully Non Automatic Man... - 6/18/2014 1:04:47 AM

Gregorovitch55

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Well, IMO it becomes an issue is where we humans are extraordinarily good at something without really trying: we can look at an explorer on a DW map and see instantly what the best exploration flight plan is. Another example is diplomacy: we are absolute masters (on this planet anyway) at driving bargains, lying, cheating, bluffing, detecting lying, cheating and bluffing, and indeed making friends if we want to. These things are very hard to simulate because they are inherently extremely difficult problems that happen to be vital to our survival so we've evolved specialized neural circuitry to handle them. On the other hand when it comes to distributing resources around your empire or handling 15 defense fleets in the face of 20 angry pirate factions simultaneously I would wager the DW AI does better, on average, than the average player would.

It's the instantly thing, I think. We can see the right flight path instantly without thinking about it so we are not conscious of the immense sophistication of the modules evolved over millions of years we use subconsciously to do it. Therefore we find it hard to accept that the problem is so difficult to solve whereas in fact we don't really understand how our own minds work half the time, if we did we probably could solve this sort of thing easily.

(in reply to Tormodino)

Post #: 90