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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Distant Worlds 1 Series >> Tech Support >> Cargo space is broken

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Cargo space is broken - 7/6/2014 3:46:44 AM

Airpower

Posts: 85
Joined: 7/2/2014
Status: offline

While doing some research on cargo space, I ran into a bug. At least I think it's a bug. I seriously hope this is a bug, and not an intentional design decision...

Based on my numbers, I have found that ships (I haven't tested freighters and mining ships) and space stations of all stripes, and in all situations, are hard capped at stockpiling about 30000 units of each resource they are extracting. It doesn't matter if the space station is a mining base, a gas mining base, or a star base. It doesn't matter if the ship is a Resupply ship or a regular combat ship with extractors and cargo space. It doesn't matter if the unit is extracting, 1, 2, 3, or 4 resources from the planet. It doesn't matter if the unit has a commerce center or not. It doesn't matter if it has additional resource extractors. It doesn't matter if the unit has 500,000 units of cargo space. Once the extracting unit hits 30000, it stop adding to its stores. Below is the data I gathered to support this claim.

When viewing these numbers, please note that a station's actual storage value for gas is somewhere in the neighborhood of 3x the designed cargo storage amount (not exactly, but ballparkish - this is actually the main thrust of my research).

Krypton Gas (Gas)
Storage         Observed maximum stockpile
548000		30155
400000		30124
300000		30189
200000		30117
100000		30109
50000		30108
35000		30133
34000		30143
33000		30133
32000		30178
31000		30231
30000		30147
29000		30165
28000		30124
27000		30185
26000		30194
25000		30140
24000		30160
23000		30132
22000		30124
21000		30151
20000		30131

19000		30163
18000		30115
17000		30166
16000		30182
15000		30127
14000		30187
13000		30135
12000		30122
11000		30167
10000		30154
9000		30124
8000		30134
7000		26499 (This is the first tested value that doesn't hit the cap)
6000		22533
5000		18896
4000		14488
3000		10461
2000		7260
1000		3235

Argon Gas (Gas)
Storage         Observed maximum stockpile
10000		30192
9000		30292
8000		30139
7000		26927 (This is the first tested value that doesn't hit the cap)
6000		22975
5000		19279
4000		15297
3000		11280
2000		7247
1000		3235

Dilithium Crystal (Mineral)
Storage         Observed maximum stockpile
60000		30036
40000		30105 (Confirmed cap)

Loros Fruit (Luxury)
Storage         Observed maximum stockpile
60000		30066
40000		30035 (Confirmed cap)

Mixed Gas (Argon, Helium, Krypton, Tyderios)
Storage         Observed maximum stockpile
60000		30136 Argon, Helium, Krypton, and Tyderios each (confirmed cap)

Mixed Fuel Gas (Caslon, Hydrogen)
Storage         Observed maximum stockpile
60000		30139 (confirmed cap)

Resupply ship and/or combat ship with gas extractors & cargo space
Storage         Observed maximum stockpile
100000		30109 Hydrogen, Caslon each (confirmed cap)

I have to assume this is a bug. I have not seen any mention of a 30000 resource hard cap in game anywhere, and it sure as hell makes no sense logically.

One immediate outcome from this knowledge is that refueling a fleet with total fuel reserves of over 30000 fuel is not possible with one refueling pass. Ships will fly away with less than full tanks, sometimes with having gained no fuel at all. This has tremendous implications to large-scale fleet refueling operations. Barring the possibility of refueling at a well-stocked planet (I haven't tested this yet), there is no way to refuel a fleet with more than 30000 total fuel in one refueling pass.

This seriously needs to be addressed, or at least explained.

< Message edited by Airpower -- 7/6/2014 4:48:42 AM >

Post #: 1

RE: Cargo space is broken - 7/6/2014 2:59:28 PM

Airpower

Posts: 85
Joined: 7/2/2014
Status: offline

Did everyone already know that cargo was capped at 30100? Was I the only one out of the loop here?

(in reply to Airpower)

Post #: 2

RE: Cargo space is broken - 7/6/2014 4:32:58 PM

Ceorl

Posts: 20
Joined: 6/11/2014
Status: offline

I didn't know about it, but I'm not sure what to add to your analysis. Its a problem, the developers should be made aware of it. My guess is that a coder programmed the cap into the system not out of evil intentions but simply in order to finish that particularly code section more quickly.

(in reply to Airpower)

Post #: 3

RE: Cargo space is broken - 7/6/2014 4:50:17 PM

Airpower

Posts: 85
Joined: 7/2/2014
Status: offline

I hope you're right. In any case, I'm not saying there were bad intentions. I'm just unclear if this is working as intended or not. If this is intentional, it needs to be represented in the ship design screen.

As evidence that this is a bug, when a station that is mining gas hits this cap, it continues to display the gas mining animation. Meaning little gas poofs shoot out of it. I tested with gas, luxury, and mineral sources, and even though mining appears to be continuing, the empire's strategic reserve does not increase past the 30100 resource cap of the base.

Meaning if you have 1 Argon station and an empire stockpile of 0 Argon, when the base hits its 30100 unit cap, you will have an empire stockpile of 30.1k Argon. But even though the base visually appears to be mining after this point, the total empire amount won't increase. After 30 minutes, the base will still visually appear to be mining, but your empire stockpile of Argon will remain at 30.1k.

This behavior is very odd, and in my opinion, indicative of a bug.

(in reply to Ceorl)

Post #: 4

RE: Cargo space is broken - 7/6/2014 8:44:26 PM

elvendeathknight

Posts: 81
Joined: 8/25/2012
Status: offline

Maybe you should post this in the bug section.

Thanks for your analysis !

(in reply to Airpower)

Post #: 5

RE: Cargo space is broken - 7/6/2014 9:06:13 PM

Airpower

Posts: 85
Joined: 7/2/2014
Status: offline

Thanks! Hope it's useful to you.

Two reasons - first, I want actual players to see it and be aware that this cap exists.

Second, I'm not sure it's a bug. I'm hoping to get developer feedback to clarify this point.

(in reply to elvendeathknight)

Post #: 6

RE: Cargo space is broken - 7/7/2014 12:19:57 AM

Rhikore

Posts: 53
Joined: 6/4/2014
Status: offline

Thanks Air, nother solid find.

Wish I had the heart/time to do more...

(in reply to Airpower)

Post #: 7

RE: Cargo space is broken - 7/8/2014 9:57:54 PM

Airpower

Posts: 85
Joined: 7/2/2014
Status: offline

Sorry to bump this, but I was curious if any community veterans had any thoughts on this issue.

Is this cargo space limitation in place intentionally? Has this already been detected and discussed before? Should I report this as a bug? Or is this a known "feature"?

(in reply to Rhikore)

Post #: 8

RE: Cargo space is broken - 7/8/2014 10:08:36 PM

Tormodino

Posts: 107
Joined: 3/27/2010
Status: offline

I had no idea this was the case. I am frequently overwhelmed by the amount of stuff going on in DW :P

I think you should report it as a possible issue. I'm not really a veteran, but I have played the game on and off since it came out and it would be very interesting and useful to find out more about this.

< Message edited by Tormodino -- 7/8/2014 11:08:51 PM >

(in reply to Airpower)

Post #: 9

RE: Cargo space is broken - 7/10/2014 5:03:39 PM

feelotraveller

Posts: 1040
Joined: 9/12/2011
Status: offline

Sorry, been offline and pretty busy.

Yes good find. Funnily enough I had sort of noticed it but not really paid it too much attention in my real game(s).

It is new to Universe as previously in Shadows and before mining stations would exhaust their excess once they reached whatever their cargo capacity was and at that point try to equalise their resources.

I pretty sure it is deliberate (but unnoted)

on the part of the developers. One thing it stops is having the megamining fortress with almost unlimited storage, and more generally it is probably to encourage players to go 'wide' rather than 'tall'. And, that, I fully support.

(in reply to Tormodino)

Post #: 10

RE: Cargo space is broken - 7/10/2014 5:15:27 PM

Nanaki

Posts: 306
Joined: 6/4/2014
Status: offline

If colonies and stations are consistantly sitting on maximum resources, it makes you wonder if the issue is not the cargo space problem, but rather there are too many resources floating around. One consequence I can see of removing the resource 'limit' is ship/base prices plummeting due to resource availability.

Most of the time I see resource shortages, the issue is not resource shortages but excess product from mining stations not getting transported to starports. It seems like the private sector/smugglers tend to emphasise international trade over intranational trade, which results in lots of trade income but starports commonly running out of resources.

To test this, I created a custom planet with nothing but Loros Fruit and Zentabia Fluid, and threw a couple of moons around it with 100% of all of the strategic resources, steel, silicon, gold, lead, etc. Despite virtually limitless quantities of resources being literally a stones throw away, the planet and its starport (a large one) still commonly ran out of resources, especially after large production orders. I also noticed that many strategic resources were often understocked as well.

< Message edited by Nanaki -- 7/10/2014 6:16:53 PM >

_____________________________

I ate the batter of the bulge at Hans' Haus of Luftwaffles

(in reply to feelotraveller)

Post #: 11

RE: Cargo space is broken - 7/10/2014 8:42:27 PM

mxmissile

Posts: 30
Joined: 10/30/2013
Status: offline

Disclaimer: this is just a fly by theory

could have something to do with possibly cargo space being stored/calced as an Int16 value, so the cap would be 32767 (0x7FFF) maybe the algorithm is set to keep it below that #?

(in reply to Nanaki)

Post #: 12

RE: Cargo space is broken - 7/10/2014 10:17:25 PM

Airpower

Posts: 85
Joined: 7/2/2014
Status: offline

That's really smart, mxmissile. Good theory!

The reason I'm prone to believe this is a bug as well is that Resupply ships REQUIRE 20% of their size to be cargo holds (and gas extractors). Leading us to believe the larger cargo holds would be needed to hold a lot of gas.

But these ships are capped at 30100 per resource too. Meaning the max cargo space they would need -ever- is 60200. This would require 488 space, with the largest cargo hold. On a size 4500 ship, you would need to allocate 900 space worth of cargo. This means 412 space worth of wasted cargo bays, or 52 bays that will never be used.

(in reply to mxmissile)

Post #: 13

RE: Cargo space is broken - 7/11/2014 9:55:05 AM

Strat_84

Posts: 84
Joined: 12/8/2011
Status: offline

Either this somewhat "fixed" cargo space in mines affects the availability of ressources, or the bug might be deeper than that.

There's a new game I started with patch 1.9.5.5, start in the age of Shadows, after 50 years of game I haven't noticed any price increase for any strategic ressource. Not even the one I usually notice for Silicon in the beginning.

(in reply to Airpower)

Post #: 14