Dragoon's rolling thread

[SephiRok]

Which you apparently experienced, hehe. The no autosave on first turn was bothering me too, I'll see if I can sneak it in tomorrow.

[Dragoon.]

Which you apparently experienced, hehe. The no autosave on first turn was bothering me too, I'll see if I can sneak it in tomorrow.

Thanks! That I call fast response coding.

[Dragoon.]

I was sick, so I haven't played for almost 2 weeks. I'm a bit far behind about the latest.

New Patch, New game.

Thank so so much for renaming Scholar of Eden to Togra University. Except I'm still called doctor and instead of professor, faculty director or dean. These young scientist just lack the proper respect. Is there an equivalent to nerve stapling in Pandora?

The acquire new territory overtime not unlike civilization is neat. Almost wonder if someday we will have a game that allow megacities. Where several cities could be combined into one supercity spanning across continent. Anyone saw the movie First Contact or played Warhammer 40K? You had this round cities spawning across the hemisphere. That was something to look at. Imagine the graphics with new production rules you could have with these cities.

I would love to have a hotkey toggle to turn of/on music. Great for multitasking or Skype chatting.

If you want to know how good Pandoras ambiance sound is, here a little story. (BTW I'm wearing in-ears) It's Good Friday. I turned off music because I was listing to a podcast. When the podcast was over I forgot to turn the music back on and keep playing. While on the city screen I switched windows to read an email. I got lost reading the email when I started to wonder about all the traffic outside, and that on a holiday. When I ultimately decided to stand up and take a look, I realized it was the game in the background.

Is it possible to add the option to show time for next tile unlocked by the city in the city name bar and in the city screen layout instead of just a tooltip? Easier to micromanage.
I'm also thinking for new player less familiar with these type of games the tooltip when hovering over a city name bar should explain the bar itself. What the numbers means, population, time to grow, turn left to finish production etc. .

As reminder I wrote this while playing.
Wow somehow the AI in 0.11.1 must been improved. The AI just kicked my ass. Horde of units. My 6 seekers have killed like 3 dozen of units in a few turns. I wished we had some statistic like in Alpha Centauri that keep track of units build, active, lost for me and other players. I must have been so much behind in development that he could just pump out replacements every other turn. Like I killed 3 units in a turn just to see two new the next. Only with the flanking bonus and because the AI was producing way too much hellfire troops I could survive that long. Also took him too long to get tanks. Actually I made the classic mistake of trying to defend everything and effectively defended nothing. I lost my capital so many times by sneak attacks that it dropped from like 11 to 0 colonist. Good that no one question my leadership. Not that there was anyone left to question it because of all the enemy pillage.
However then it became really ridicules. I'm down to my last seeker ATV with 0.4 hp in my second and only city, surround by two enemy units, when I finished next turn my first avenger tank with already researched serenity cannon. Thanks for random tec tree that made me research anti-armor warhead long before tanks. What follow was a complete reversal. I destroyed everything he threw at me, conquered his 4 cities and my capital back. Ultimately eliminating him.
From being 1 turn away from defeat to the biggest faction in March 2112. That must been one of the most exciting games I had for years in a 4x game. I was ready to ragequit but because I never have lost before in Pandora I wanted to see what happens in defeat. This is why you say that victory tastes so much sweeter after the bitterness of defeat. Games like that are what you will remember, not the one that you just breezed through.

Now I need a break and some hearth pills.

[Dragoon.]

There is one thing that worries me a lot with the randomized tec tree. Does have each faction their own random tec tree or the is same template used for everyone?
Because new military tecs especially unit chassis can have sometimes a massive impact. So strong in my opinion that they can reverse a situation. If for example I can research tanks and serenity cannon a tier sooner than normal and my opponent got them placed a tier later than normal he is put at a severe disadvantage. A human player could compensate for a while, but the AI likely get hammered before he can catch up. Especially if the AI don't beeline research to counter.
Imagine the situation with mechs and aircrafts.

The situation can get further unbalanced if these military tech are so lucky placed for me that I would research them in passing, because they are surrounded by what I conceive as mandatory tecs. So I don't have to make hard decisions about spending time developing the military branch of the tec tree to unlock new units, thus neglecting economic and industrial research in mean time. Instead I get everything I need compressed form.

[SephiRok]

<3

I suppose if we keep University as the faction name, we could elevate him from a mere doctor to a professor. :-)

Is it possible to add the option to show time for next tile unlocked by the city in the city name bar and in the city screen layout instead of just a tooltip? Easier to micromanage.
I'm also thinking for new player less familiar with these type of games the tooltip when hovering over a city name bar should explain the bar itself. What the numbers means, population, time to grow, turn left to finish production etc.

Yup, great idea!

Added music hotkey toggle to the TODO list as well.

The tech tree is the same for all players. :-)

[Dragoon.]

Before reading this get yourself a nice treat like a chocolate bar.

I talked about the layout before but this time I want go into greater detail what concern me. By the way that except for the city screen all other share the same layout, two columns with first column split into two rows. Is that convenience or engine limitation?

Let me say first I really like the main window interface and your city screen. It is slim, not intrusive and maximize the view on the game world. Alpha Centauri was in that regard terrible. The interface took way to much space.
I have only two wishes about the city screen. One is the option to collapse a list like Buildings or Units and the other is the ability to reorder the build queue. If you want get fancy maybe even allow to clone/import/export a queue.


Now let's get dirty.

Help window...
For me the help window is unconformable to navigate. I really don't like the drop-down selection box. My suggestion would be to either add a 3rd column.
Like from left to right Categories -> Topic -> Details
For example (column 1 categories) Advancements, (column 2 topics) Colonization Fervor, (column 3 details) [Picture] The rush for territorial domination..., yadda, yadda.
If you want hold on to the two column design, then how about make it like a file explorer? Get rid of the drop-down box and have ale categories listed all in column 1. Clicking on a category replace the list with the topics but add the line ../ at the top of the list to go back.

For new players it could be helpful to add a category like "Game Concepts". Place all the tutorial tips here as topic. Maybe lose some additional words about combat mechanics, colonization, cities, pollution and first steps in a new world. The more comprehensive the in-game help is (which I find already quite comprehensive with all tooltips. Really good work you guys did here.), the thinner the manual can be.
I guess us beta testers could even write a few tips & hints for you to place there. These overcritical parasitic beta testers must be good for something with value.


Economy and Military screen...
I would like if the various windows would either scale automatically with the resolution or that you have the option to resize them. In my opinion especially the Economy and Military screens would greatly benefit from that. Both screens could also need some kind of sorting mechanism. For economy, sorting opions for all the values already displayed there like population, minerals, moral etc.. Please add current production for each city to the economy screen as well. Make managing bigger empires way easier and faster.
For the military screen a split between civilian and military units instead to dump everything into one big list. Optimal would be one category for each chassis and/or one for each design.


The workshop windows is the second most that troubles me. This tiny list on the upper left corner to list all the design is way to small.


Now lets talk about AI Pathfinding.
Before you go gold with Pandora put some hard stops at the AI pathfinding routines. There should be a rule for formers never to cross enemy territory. Even if as results they just skip turn or are redirected to the next friendly city. Even if they just get disbanded instead would be better than to be destroyed. At least the AI get some cash back than to play target drone for the enemy.

Something similar is needed for naval transports. A hard block to prevent a unit embarking next to an enemy unit. Again if pathfinding can't not find an alternative route just skip turn or redirect to the next city.

I understand that scripting AI behavior is one of the toughest things to code and what look simple to do from the outside may actually hard to put into practice. But I advise your to work on these two. On reviewers will defiantly complain about that and think the AI is dumb.

BTW is the a toggle for grid display? I know there is a option in settings but the readme don't list a hotkey? At least it's not CTRL+G.

[Dragoon.]

Formers should be capable to replace previous terraforming. It's unnecessary micromanagement and make no sense that I have to pillage a hex with a military unit first.

Medium maps are very small maps.
Highest alien activity setting is way no intensive enough. Increase it by 200%. Increase it until I tell you your game suck. Then taunt me for getting exactly I wished for.

I need to watch the AI movement. especially when they cross my border or attack my units.

Pollution...
I'm not a fan of how it works. For a micromanaging nazi like me it's quite a nightmare. As there is no notice about new pollution I have to find it myself and send a former. Eventually I gave up on micromanaging and just had an automated former for each city. Cleaning up pollution is just work and no fun at all. The total production loss of a hex is further annoying when micromanaging resource production across all cities. But this maybe just my problem as a compulsive micromanager.
Personally I would say take the whole pollution system and throw it out the window, then replace it with something new. I liked how Master of Orion 2 handled pollution. In Moo2 pollution applied a penalty to your production. The more pollution the higher the penalty. The higher your production higher the penalty coefficient becomes too. The more intensive you're industry is, the higher the ecology damage is.
However unlike Moo2 apply the penalty also to food production or basically to everything including growth but exclude research. You already included population as a pollution factor. This makes sense so you should keep it. Recycling, anti-pollution achievements and buildings should reduce either the total pollution or the penalty coefficient pollution does to your production. Certain buildings and techs should affect pollution generation differently. Some techs should be less or higher damaging to the environment. Just to spice things up.
Have fun designing underlying math for this system.

[SephiRok]

I talked about the layout before but this time I want go into greater detail what concern me. By the way that except for the city screen all other share the same layout, two columns with first column split into two rows. Is that convenience or engine limitation?

Consistency mostly.

For new players it could be helpful to add a category like "Game Concepts". Place all the tutorial tips here as topic. Maybe lose some additional words about combat mechanics, colonization, cities, pollution and first steps in a new world.

Good idea!

I would like if the various windows would either scale automatically with the resolution or that you have the option to resize them. In my opinion especially the Economy and Military screens would greatly benefit from that. Both screens could also need some kind of sorting mechanism. For economy, sorting opions for all the values already displayed there like population, minerals, moral etc.. Please add current production for each city to the economy screen as well. Make managing bigger empires way easier and faster.

We have plans to improve those panels. Resizing is on the wishlist, but I doubt it'll be in for release.

BTW is the a toggle for grid display? I know there is a option in settings but the readme don't list a hotkey? At least it's not CTRL+G. :)

Not currently.

Formers should be capable to replace previous terraforming. It's unnecessary micromanagement and make no sense that I have to pillage a hex with a military unit first.

Planned.

Highest alien activity setting is way no intensive enough. Increase it by 200%. Increase it until I tell you your game suck. Then taunt me for getting exactly I wished for.

Alien aggression only changes how fast aliens become aggressive towards you.

I need to watch the AI movement. especially when they cross my border or attack my units.

What do you mean?

Pollution. I'm not a fan of how it works.

We have been discussing pollution quite a bit. Don't have anything concrete to tell you at the moment.

Cheers,
Rok