Open Beta Patch v1.27a (18 june 2025)

[JWW]

In the end I have a lot of faith in Vic to come up with great changes.

[Vic]

ORIGINAL: Destragon

Am I not understanding something here or is there a bug in how these points are displayed in the traffic sign window?
How are these points adding up to 800? Why is it sending 341 points to the north east when there are only 200 requested?

Yeah. minor glitch. well spotted. will be fixed beta-3.

[Vic]

The big problem, as it always is with such things, is that the machine (after bug fixes if necessary) doesn't make mistakes. Cannot forget to check stuff. So it's 100% BETTER to enable this system.
Which makes me very sad. This game celebrates player agency in levels I have never seen before (for example in digging through reports to figure out causes and solutions of, say, the private economy tanking).
But this is a step in the other direction.

Not sure. It might seem so early in the game, but issues will creep up for sure over time.

For example:
* Road to A to D over B is shortest but for example does not have a supply base III en route, while Road A to D over C is longer but has a supply base III en route. In this case the Pull system will try to pull the points over the shorter road where it will evaporate halfway. Here you'll have to manually intervene.
* You have more Pull Points than you have Logistical Points available, here you'll still have to take action. For example by BLOCKING Pull Points on some Hexes.
* And you still have to make sure that all your Logistical assets connect well with eachother.

The Pull Points are just an extra tool in the toolbox imho.

And you can already disable it. Once you have unflagged the 3 flags (asset pull,unit pull,etc..) once they'll stay unflagged with a next game start.

[Vic]

Big question for me is IF if the Traffic Signs should be seperate or mix with the Pull Points.

The more I think about it the more I think it will be more intuitive and consistent if they'd mix.

This way for example a city with 100 LP with 2 roads (north and south) each having 100 LP pull at their end would normally send 50 north and 50 south. If the systems would mix and you'll put a 40% Reduction Traffic Sign to the north it would then send 28 LP north and 72 LP south.

Best wishes,
Vic

[Vhalor]

ORIGINAL: Vic
* You have more Pull Points than you have Logistical Points available, here you'll still have to take action. For example by BLOCKING Pull Points on some Hexes.

I think this new pull system has a lot of potential to help the game. Now about the above mentioned problem, a three way priority setting (High, Default, Low) for the pull requests could surly help with that.

Wouldn't want some low priority public assets divert vital logistic capacity from critical assets or the front for example. And such a priority setting would ensure that in the case of a shortage, that critical infrastructure is serviced first.

Could even go a step further then and have public assets be low priority by default for example. Even less potential for trouble.

ORIGINAL: Vic

Big question for me is IF if the Traffic Signs should be seperate or mix with the Pull Points.

The more I think about it the more I think it will be more intuitive and consistent if they'd mix.

This way for example a city with 100 LP with 2 roads (north and south) each having 100 LP pull at their end would normally send 50 north and 50 south. If the systems would mix and you'll put a 40% Reduction Traffic Sign to the north it would then send 28 LP north and 72 LP south.

Best wishes,
Vic

The problem with mixing I see is this: I have several critical assets that need 100 LP each, how to ensure now that they get those 100 LP for certain? Traffic signs that mix, could quickly mess that up if I understand the above correctly.

But if I can assign them "high priority", that could work, I suppose.

[Malevolence]

ORIGINAL: Vic

Big question for me is IF if the Traffic Signs should be seperate or mix with the Pull Points.

The more I think about it the more I think it will be more intuitive and consistent if they'd mix.

This way for example a city with 100 LP with 2 roads (north and south) each having 100 LP pull at their end would normally send 50 north and 50 south. If the systems would mix and you'll put a 40% Reduction Traffic Sign to the north it would then send 28 LP north and 72 LP south.

Best wishes,
Vic

No, I think that's wrong. You're pushing Alice farther down the rabbit hole.

Now you added an automatic pull system, but you're back to how to deal with its prioritization. Except that both the push and pull systems are co-existing in the same space.

The above quote seems to indicate you want to take shortcuts again. The fact that everything is being crammed into the traffic sign view window is an indicator too.

Imagine the issue that already existed... rail points and truck points existed in the same hex, but the same traffic signals in the hex controlled them both. That was a mistake on a smaller scale. It was small enough to be unnoticeable to most players.

Rail points and truck points should have had separate control signals in each hex. That doesn't mean traffic signals were wrong for either, but the setting and behavior for rail points should not have changed the state of truck points. Minor given the design, but still wrong.

So now you're thinking about priority and use cases again and rationalizing mixing the controls again--on systems that are even more dissimilar than the truck/train point flows.

The behavior of logistics should be as predictable and unambiguous as accounting---and for some as boring as accounting too.

[Destragon]

ORIGINAL: Vic

The more I think about it the more I think it will be more intuitive and consistent if they'd mix.

I agree with what Vhalor and Malevolence said. There should at least be a way to prevent normal logistics from traveling down a road, but allowing the pull logistics to keep going down that road unobstructed.

[Malevolence]

Preview view. On the left 95% and on the right 100%. No other changes other than to change the traffic sign.

I'll leave it to the reader to pick apart all the issues.

This is why mixing these controls is ultimately not helpful for the player or for the developer--the way we all know there are no bugs is by clearly viewing what we expect to see.

[Destragon]

I mentioned that here as a bug:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4847177
Currently pull logistics ignore traffic signs, EXCEPT for the "block all" traffic sign.

[GodwinW]

I think it's fine to mix them in principle (pull UI should be separate though ideally I agree but I do not mind personally) but the whole system has become harder to penetrate in full for new players I think.

Basically where before the learning curve was this:

It is now:


Sure, it was a steeper climb right away but you had to climb it to play, and once you got it it wasn't bad at all.
Now it's so easy. No problem at all. But if you want to pierce being able to solve problems with traffic signs which are already niche and rare, you have to commit to learning about it without much incentive to do so, and not that much pay-off. Many will not do so.
So there are 2 skill levels now.

Vic, one of your examples (the other two are the same in either system (replace more pull points than you get by units starving)) exemplifies this to me:

* Road to A to D over B is shortest but for example does not have a supply base III en route, while Road A to D over C is longer but has a supply base III en route. In this case the Pull system will try to pull the points over the shorter road where it will evaporate halfway. Here you'll have to manually intervene.

So, I'm a new player. I know I should build truck stops or sealed roads or supply stations to enable the pull system.
But I never would deal with traffic signs because the pull system automates it so I have hardly any awareness of it.

In your case, I will very simply conclude (because investigation also was never needed beyond bottleneck view) that I need to build a supply station on the shorter route. Fixed. Done.
No problem.

How will I even become aware of the second skill level without reading forums or spending loads of time and having an inquisitive mind?

Now, this is no problem at all in itself.

But on the Steam forums people will read about traffic signs and cases like this and fear they will need to master this to have a chance (or because people simply want to now they know it's a thing) and then you might get a lot of posts about why for heaven's sake the pull system isn't made better so that you have this curve:


Because why not? Why have traffic signs in the first place? For those weird edge-cases only (in their mind, w/o understanding the history)? Why not just code it a bit better?
I can very easily see the forums filled with such posts.

That's why it's a slippery slope, having this system.

[Malevolence]

ORIGINAL: Destragon

I mentioned that here as a bug:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4847177
Currently pull logistics ignore traffic signs, EXCEPT for the "block all" traffic sign.

Not only. A normal person is going to look at the differences in preview points and scratch their head. Under different circumstances, preview points rise along route when they block off a split.

It's different when mixing prioritized pull points, however.

[willgamer]

Well.... surprise, surprise! [8|]

Guess the "simple" change to a pull system, that was so freely advocated, is not so simple in the details. [X(]

As ever, extraordinary claims, demand extraordinary proof.

[Vhalor]

LIS is indeed complicated business. That's why the Cult of LIS exists. Devote yourself fully to this great mystical power and true wisdom shall surly follow suit!

On another note. This new pull system seems to have a lot more potential compared with the old archaic push one. Looking forward to future improvements!

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: willgamer

Well.... surprise, surprise! [8|]

Guess the "simple" change to a pull system, that was so freely advocated, is not so simple in the details. [X(]

As ever, extraordinary claims, demand extraordinary proof.

Okay. Who actually said it will be "simple"?
Please with quotes. I hate arguing against peoples imagination. [;)]

[Vic]

Hi all,

Just posted v104-beta3.

Thanks for all the feedback.

Wanted to make two points concerning the Pull Points.

First the system has not been simplified, just an extra tool to manage it has been added to the toolbox. If you want you can play the game exactly the same as before the Pull Points were added by just not using this Pull Points "tool”.

Secondly I gave it a lot of thought and I concluded (for now) the Traffic Signs system and the Pull Points should be interconnected/mixable and NOT be presented as two separate systems. This will lead to less confusion and Players can always choose to use only one or only the other or choose to mix them. I just feel it is more coherent like this.

Best wishes,
Vic

[Destragon]

Thanks for the update. The logistical points log already makes a lot more sense to me.

ORIGINAL: Vic
Secondly I gave it a lot of thought and I concluded (for now) the Traffic Signs system and the Pull Points should be interconnected/mixable and NOT be presented as two separate systems. This will lead to less confusion and Players can always choose to use only one or only the other or choose to mix them. I just feel it is more coherent like this.

If I have a mine to the east, which requires 100 logistics points, and I want all the leftover logistics to travel to the road north, because I want them for strategic moving, what do I do?
There's no traffic sign that only prevents the leftover logistics from traveling east, is there?
I guess should I just be putting custom pull points on the tile that heads north?

[zgrssd]

Windows blocks access to the "ShadowEmpire.exe", as it was tagged as "downloaded from the internet". First time that happens with a beta for me.

[Destragon]

I think I just found a little thing that could be improved.
The pull system is intelligent enough to realise that assets don't use the logistics points that they require, which means, when you have 2 mines in a line, which both need 100 logistics points, it will send only 100 logistics points, because it knows that that's enough to satisfy both, which is great.

But I just noticed this situation with 3 mines and a fork in the road. Because there is a fork and two mines are on different paths, the pull system should actually be requesting 200 points here, but instead it only sends out 100.

[ussdefiant]

I think either beta2 or beta3 might've broken some sanity checks somewhere. This is a Siwa-class that had 70 million pop in the colonization phase.

[Vhalor]

You mean 70 Billion?