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Yeah i caused a glitch with the Item% with last beta. Should be fixed now. Thanks for quick reporting!

Thanks for the even quicker fixing!

By the way, was it fixed that the "unification" stratagem could be played multiple times on the same turn on the same regime?
Edit: Just managed to try it on a new game. Looks like this is still possible.

ORIGINAL: Tchey

If he sleeps 4 hours, codes 3 hours, publish, eat, and repeat, he can do it.

Boo! *throws popcorn* [:'(]

ORIGINAL: Vic

and yeah i'll get a bit slower over time. don't expect me to keep this speed up

Yes, please don't burn yourself out! [:)]

ORIGINAL: Destragon

Thanks for the even quicker fixing!

By the way, was it fixed that the "unification" stratagem could be played multiple times on the same turn on the same regime?
Edit: Just managed to try it on a new game. Looks like this is still possible.

Nope I missed that report. But will fix it for the next version.

Thanks, Vic.
Did you notice the bug where the difficulty for annexation and unification says "no tests" when the difficulty modifier is negative? For example, when the regime has 0 tradition and 50 relation, so the difficulty ends up being 2d100 - 50, but gets displayed as no test?

Big patch!

I wanted to move to v1.04, but I had already started on optimizing some logistics calculations (and doing some rule finetunings as well)... And well they are quite big. So i prefer to have this as a beta version first.

Hope this version also increases the turn calcs speed for some late-game players. It should. Prob. in order of like 30 or maybe 40% faster. No miracles, but every bit helps.

best wishes,
Vic

-Rail Logistics => 5pts per Hex * (instead of 2)
-Truck Logistics on Sealed => 7pts per Hex * (instead of 5)

Not sure I understand... did this just make logistics even more difficult? [&:]

ORIGINAL: willgamer

-Rail Logistics => 5pts per Hex * (instead of 2)
-Truck Logistics on Sealed => 7pts per Hex * (instead of 5)

Not sure I understand... did this just make logistics even more difficult? [&:]

That decreases the time/number of hexes until the dropoff happens. So the supply system would end up with a few more stops that produce Tuck/Rail points along the way.

ORIGINAL: Vic

Changelist to v1.03-beta10
-After the 4th branching (not counting the source) logistics “runners” will suffer AP penalties (5th branch=10 ap, 6h = 40, 7th=90, 8th=160,etc..).

I am not sure what that means. Will it also effectively cause the logistics to be harder?

It means having too many branches in your logistical network will reduce the potential max distance your truck stations can reach.
Not sure if I like that one yet.

Wow such nerfs to logistics. I cannot help but wonder why..?

Maybe it's because once you've figured the logistics system out there aren't that many occasions where you need to build new logistical structures. Limiting the output of individual networks should deepen the supply planning experience as players will have to plan their logistics more carefully.

Hey Vic,
I've got a couple of questions about the beta10.

Do the number of branches include ones where all supply is stopped in one direction? (for example 400 in, 400 out one way, 0 out the second way?)

Does a fourway branch give more penalty then a threeway branch?

Does the amount that is blocked by a traffic light influence the penalty?

This change makes the fact the private industry sometimes builds roads themselves ever more of an hassle. It introduces a branch which is dead ended (for only that asset being build) but it will give an cumulative extra penalty down the line. Could that be addressed somehow (like not building a road for an asset that could be build on an existing road like a farm and/or them building roads at all)?

Is the penalty a one time drop? (for example.. 400 in, 180 out one way, 180 out other way, 40 lost?)

Will the drop be visible somewhere? Logistics is a difficult topic for beginning players and having supply "vanish" will probably confuse them.

While i don't mind that this pushes supply more to rail, having different traffic signs for truck and rail becomes more of a must to be able to use the supply well. Could these be implemented?


And a more general question, what is the reasoning for these changes? What do you hope to accomplish? Is logistics stretching too far, is it too easy with a centralized system?

edit: added "different" to make it more clear

ORIGINAL: Culthrasa

And a more general question, what is the reasoning for these changes? What do you hope to accomplish? Is logistics stretching too far, is it too easy with a centralized system?

Seconded.

Vic, I really think you should take a moment to write up a general overview of what you wish to achieve with the logistics system and what changes you have planned. This is clearly a hot topic amongst your playerbase, and it seems this latest patch is aimed at making things worse rather than better. Roads created for private assets could already badly mess up supply lines, and they will mess them up even worse after this patch.

"*=requires a new game start to go into effect" -- does starting a new game by loading a saved planet (lastplanetgenerated.se1) and going through empire creation count as starting a new game for this purpose, or are you locked into the the game's state at the time of that planetgeneration savegame being made?

ORIGINAL: Pi2repsilon

"*=requires a new game start to go into effect" -- does starting a new game by loading a saved planet (lastplanetgenerated.se1) and going through empire creation count as starting a new game for this purpose, or are you locked into the the game's state at the time of that planetgeneration savegame being made?

It was already answered here - no, you need to generate a new planet. Last generated planet is still a save just a "Turn 0" one

ORIGINAL: GodwinW

Wow such nerfs to logistics. I cannot help but wonder why..?

Combating the game's absurd turn processing times, I'd presume.

It is a pain in the arse to play later in the game with the current turn times, and it isn't as if turns are resolved quickly at game start either. Those of us playing now are obviously willing to tolerate this - at least for now - due to the promise the game shows, but for that promise to be fulfilled and for this in the long run to be anything but a niche game for diehard wargamers, turn times have to come way down.

The last time I played a game with such long turn times was the Great Nordic War on Commodore 64 in 1986, and it was barely acceptable then.

If profiling shows that the logistics calculations are a significant part of the reason for that, then logistics needs to be overhauled to maintain the spirit of the design while taking much less time. Unsurprisingly, limiting branching and number of nodes in each branch (length) from the major sources will significantly impact this, so it is the obvious place to start along with refactoring the code for efficiency. If AI play isn't significantly affected by this (e.g. AI doesn't make efficient long-distance logistics networks anyway), then the major impact will be an increased challenge for the player to make a good logistics network, and that's fine. Let's see how it works out.

By the time this game hits Steam later in the year, it will ideally have turn times that appeal to non-masochistic 4X gamers, who aren't dedicated wargamers but are willing to give a 4X/wargame/management/RPG-light hybrid a chance. It has within it the seeds of greatness.

Just my thoughts as an ex-games developer.

What is the reasoning behind the logistics value changes? Are they meant to make the calculations more efficient? I can see how having shorter distances and fewer branches might be faster to compute, but I'm having a hard time thinking of an in-fiction explanation for why trucks can't drive as far when they have to make a turn.

ORIGINAL: willgamer

-Rail Logistics => 5pts per Hex * (instead of 2)
-Truck Logistics on Sealed => 7pts per Hex * (instead of 5)

Not sure I understand... did this just make logistics even more difficult? [&:]

I believe it's one of those cases you can't have your cake and eat it too. I believe it's to keep a unit from getting logistic points from so many sources across the whole map slowing the late game down to a crawl.

I don't really have an opinion on reducing the action points of logistics in general. It just reduces the reach of truck stations and makes you need to build an additional station in certain edge situations. That's fine I guess.

But I don't really understand this AP penalty for branches in roads. I don't think I like it, because it seems too imperceptible for players, like a penalty that people would never realise exists until they randomly read about it in the manual. And then once you do know about it, it makes you want to micromanage your road network even more than now, to minimise the amount of branching on your roads, to minimise the penalty.
It was already kinda annoying when civilians build a new private asset that connects to your existing road network, because it would drain too many logistics points, until you manually place a traffic sign there. This change presumably makes this slightly more annoying, because the civilians will also increase the branching penalty of whatever road they connected to.