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Crazy Gold alien bug fix
https://mail.black-squirrel.com/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=28198		 Page 1 of 2
Author:  John Pritchett [ Mon Aug 09, 2010 3:17 pm ]
Post subject:  Crazy Gold alien bug fix
I just wanted to bring this to everyone's attention right away, because it's going to be a significant change in Gold alien behavior.

When a Gold alien race is set to be aggressive, or in special AI modes, or for any sector in the alien's home space, the alien should attempt to enter a sector with defensive or toll fighters and attack those fighters to attempt to clear them. However, a longstanding bug has kept any alien from entering any sector with defensive fighters, except in the rare cases of special AI modes. This is why the mail files are bloated with sector retreat messages. Gold aliens are easily trapped by even a single defensive fig and will move onto and retreat off of that fig indefinitely. Having fixed this behavior, Gold aliens will easily mow through fighter grids, as they always should have done. Again, this is somewhat dependent on alien settings, but any Aggressive race will always attack defensive figs (Ferrengi are default Aggressive, Alien Traders are not), and any race will attempt to clear them from home space.

I know this is going to be a major change from longstanding behavior, but the new behavior is intended behavior, and this will solve some significant problems (mail bloat being among the most significant).
Author:  V'Ger [ Mon Aug 09, 2010 3:32 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Crazy Gold alien bug fix
Thanks John.

Can you elaborate on the special AI modes? Is that the feature (I cannot seem to recall it now) which was disabled but was supposed to allow more specialized alien behavior?
Author:  John Pritchett [ Mon Aug 09, 2010 4:12 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Crazy Gold alien bug fix
No, the special AI modes have been there forever. That means, for example, if an alien is being called in to support another alien, or being called back to its homeworld to defend it or to fortify it. There are a number of different ways that an alien might be given specific directions, and if an alien is in one of those modes, that alien will tend to be a bit more aggressive in finding a way to its destination. The "normal" AI mode is just a wandering mode. There are some AI modes, like port pair trading, that won't cause an alien to be more aggressive.
Author:  Promethius [ Mon Aug 09, 2010 4:13 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Crazy Gold alien bug fix
I have had aliens clear defensive fighters out too many times to count. I don't drop toll, or offensive and they have shown both the hit/retreat and hit/kill on the defensive fighters.
Author:  John Pritchett [ Mon Aug 09, 2010 6:12 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Crazy Gold alien bug fix
What you're seeing when you see defensive fighters cleared is an alien in an AI mode that causes it to move more aggressively. It did happen in the past, but with this fix, it's going to be much more common. If an op chooses, an alien race can be used to limit fighter grids. But if the op wants a game with less interference by aliens, the Aggressive flag will need to be turned off, the move rate decreased, or the race population decreased so they don't clear away as many fighters and cover so much ground.
Author:  Big D [ Mon Aug 09, 2010 6:18 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Crazy Gold alien bug fix
I haven't really played many games with aliens in them lately, but I do have a question about the alien farming bug. When a player makes planets in alien space the aliens races will often claim that planet and fill it totally with product when they claim it. Has this been changed?
Author:  John Pritchett [ Mon Aug 09, 2010 7:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Crazy Gold alien bug fix
Not yet. Intended behavior is for the race to upgrade defenses along with product. There should never be a planet that's free for the picking like this. If there's a valuable planet, there needs to be enough defense for there to be some cost associated with capturing it. There are several things I'm going to fix with Gold aliens and that's definitely one of them.
Author:  Singularity [ Mon Aug 09, 2010 7:17 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Crazy Gold alien bug fix
John Pritchett wrote:
Not yet. Intended behavior is for the race to upgrade defenses along with product. There should never be a planet that's free for the picking like this. If there's a valuable planet, there needs to be enough defense for there to be some cost associated with capturing it. There are several things I'm going to fix with Gold aliens and that's definitely one of them.


That's going to require some very balanced defensive settings.
Author:  John Pritchett [ Tue Aug 10, 2010 10:31 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Crazy Gold alien bug fix
It would be nice to make it "intelligent", but it'll be a huge improvement just to have ANY defenses.
Author:  Singularity [ Tue Aug 10, 2010 10:42 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Crazy Gold alien bug fix
John Pritchett wrote:
It would be nice to make it "intelligent", but it'll be a huge improvement just to have ANY defenses.


Well, what happens is this: People know that aliens are going to fill their planet.
The go to alien space, they pop planets, let aliens fill them. Then later they go
in and either upgrade the planet to mobile (if it's 0-day), or they move the stuff
over to a mobile and then sell it off. This turns alien farming into a cashing method.

The problem, of course, is that this is can be done with pretty much all gold aliens.
While it wouldn't be bad in all situations, many times sysops want to create edits
that have a particular primary cashing method. This way they can control the max
flow of cash so as to control the pace of the game. Because there is no way to
turn this off, it means sysops have to turn aliens off if they want to prevent this
kind of cashing. That breaks aliens.

Now having some kind of defense will make it more expensive, but this can be
gamed too. First, there will always be a way to figure out the average costs, and
thus factor that into the cost of this cashing method. Second, if you restrict the
planets you pop only to a specific type that only goes lv1 after a few days... then
you suddenly can bypass the defense upgrades, and perhaps end up with free
fighters in the process. Unless, of course, aliens magically upgrade planets... but
then that becomes an even funner way to bypass the pace limits of the game.

This is why it will take very careful defensive balancing, or none of these changes
will matter. This is why we need, specifically, a way to shut off this behavior in the
alien settings. Otherwise, it will continue to be abused and the only recourse
sysops have in the natural course of the game is to shut off aliens.
Author:  John Pritchett [ Tue Aug 10, 2010 11:05 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Crazy Gold alien bug fix
I guess I don't agree that failing to achieve perfection means it's not worth doing. I can't conceive in my mind how this game could ever be perfect, but I strive to improve it.
Author:  Singularity [ Tue Aug 10, 2010 11:42 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Crazy Gold alien bug fix
John Pritchett wrote:
I guess I don't agree that failing to achieve perfection means it's not worth doing. I can't conceive in my mind how this game could ever be perfect, but I strive to improve it.


I had hoped that by explaining the problem you'd see what settings were needed
to fix it, rather than just shutting down discussion with generalizations. If that's
the kind of feedback we're going to get, what's the point of being involved in the
beta process at all?

Making the planets defend themselves just means that players will pop slow planets
in alien space rather than random planets in alien space. That way they can continue
to milk them. If aliens have magic upgrade powers, then that becomes a cheat to
get around the upgrade times. If aliens start adding figs to lv1 planets, then that
becomes a way to get free figs. If the settings aren't done correctly they will make
the problem worse.
Author:  John Pritchett [ Tue Aug 10, 2010 3:27 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Crazy Gold alien bug fix
Most of your advice is very useful, but here you seemed to be saying here that it's unrealistic to expect to fix this so what's the point in trying. Your advice seemed to be "get rid of it". If I misread your point, I'm sorry. I'm just defending my position in believing that it's worth the effort even if it won't be perfect. We've had a few debates where you seemed to argue that it's impossible to fix so just leave it alone. If I suggest one way to improve the situation, you point out several other problems that will arise.

In this case, all I'm saying is that there needs to be some cost associated with capturing a valuable planet, and that the cost should be somewhat related to the value of the planet. That's not so complicated. And it'll be a major improvement over current behavior. It's not my goal to make aliens into the ultimate players. But they shouldn't be a complete pushover either. That's a pretty big target and I think I can hit it.

You keep saying it needs to be something that can be turned off. If an alien race doesn't maintain a homespace (Alien Traders don't, Ferrengi do), then they shouldn't be attempting to capture planets at all. So unless there's a bug I'm not aware of, it's already possible to turn this off without turning off aliens entirely. The only reason for aliens to have a homeworld and homespace is to give players a target, planets to invade. So as long as there's a reasonable cost associated with those invasions, I think we'll be fine.
Author:  Singularity [ Tue Aug 10, 2010 4:18 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Crazy Gold alien bug fix
John Pritchett wrote:
Most of your advice is very useful, but here you seemed to be saying here that it's unrealistic to expect to fix this so what's the point in trying. Your advice seemed to be "get rid of it". If I misread your point, I'm sorry. I'm just defending my position in believing that it's worth the effort even if it won't be perfect. We've had a few debates where you seemed to argue that it's impossible to fix so just leave it alone. If I suggest one way to improve the situation, you point out several other problems that will arise.


I didn't say it was impossible to fix, I said to fix the problem while keeping the
function would require careful defensive balancing. Anything short of careful
defensive balancing will just make the problem worse, because players are
going to find a way to take advantage of the situation. I went as far as to show
how players could do this.

John Pritchett wrote:
In this case, all I'm saying is that there needs to be some cost associated with capturing a valuable planet, and that the cost should be somewhat related to the value of the planet.


Okay. So let's consider the situation then. Lets say I pop a planet that takes 3
days to go lv1 in alien space. The aliens find it and fill it up for me in one day.
Now, how are you going to make that cost more than what it does?

It's lv0, so if you put figs on the planet people can just grab them for free. That
makes it cost less, actually makes alien farming worth more. So lets say you
don't put figs on the planet, you just have the aliens start upgrading the planet
to citadel. Fine, but it takes 3 days to go lv1, how are you going to make the
resources cost more until then? Or are we going to see magic upgrades on these
planets? If that's the case, then it makes it even more valuable to put big
planets there and wait for aliens to up them. How do you make an lv0 or lv1
planet cost more to take by making defenses that don't exist yet?

The solution is to limit what the aliens can fill. For instance, they may only fill
lv5 planets that are theirs. Anything less, torp invasions are too easy. Or just
have a setting that turns off aliens filling planets that were created by players.
But one way or another, there needs to be a limit.

John Pritchett wrote:
That's not so complicated. And it'll be a major improvement over current behavior. It's not my goal to make aliens into the ultimate players. But they shouldn't be a complete pushover either. That's a pretty big target and I think I can hit it.


Yes but that isn't what was asked here. D asked for a way to fix the alien farming
bug. That's a specific bug, not just a "can you make the aliens tougher."

John Pritchett wrote:
You keep saying it needs to be something that can be turned off. If an alien race doesn't maintain a homespace (Alien Traders don't, Ferrengi do), then they shouldn't be attempting to capture planets at all. So unless there's a bug I'm not aware of, it's already possible to turn this off without turning off aliens entirely. The only reason for aliens to have a homeworld and homespace is to give players a target, planets to invade. So as long as there's a reasonable cost associated with those invasions, I think we'll be fine.


Yes, but that requires eliminating the alien home world, too.

Gold aliens can fill up anything in their alien space that they run into. So if I pop
a planet, it's likely to get filled. We're not talking about invasions, we're talking
about coordinated alien bug use. Invading an lv0 or lv1 planet costs nothing, and
I don't know of a way to make it cost more than it's worth.
Author:  Helix [ Tue Aug 10, 2010 6:03 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Crazy Gold alien bug fix
How about we let him work on the fix and test the settings after that?

H
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