Matrix Games Forums

Edit: Bah wrong thread, disregard.

Hi.

Something new from the developers?

Soon... [8D]

Ooo yes, music to our collective ears

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

After running two games where AI has decided the start, I find the AI good at building research stations. True, at the very start it is slow, but it does not last long.

A solution is not harder than letting your AI do the building for you, and not do a cheesy retrofit to a super home port. That you use something that resembles and exploit does not mean that the AI have to do so too.

ORIGINAL: unclean

I don't think that's an exploit, instead of retrofitting you can always just build research stations at your homeworld for the same effect. It's good play, and I don't see why the AI shouldn't do the same, really.

Bingeling is incorrect about it 'not lasting long'. It is common for me to be 10-15 techs ahead of the AI because of my retrofitting.


I also disagree it's an exploit. I think it would be much more accurate to describe it as a bad game mechanism brought on by a poor research system. 'Cheesy' is the word, not 'exploit'. Starting players out with a base that produces 120K research when their actual starting potential is in the 400-600K range is simply bad design. What are players supposed to do, play badly on purpose and avoid retrofitting their initial space ports in order to keep a level playing field by playing as badly as the AI? Just bad design, really bad. The research system needs a complete overhaul - but fortunately one that shouldn't be too hard to retrofit the game to, so to speak - it requires the few simple changes I outlined to produce one version of a healthy system.

A quick solution would be to add more bases at start, yes. What I try to say is that the AI is aggressive at placing research and resort locations early. It is not a lot of time after the start that it approaches the potential.

In my swarm-game which I just posted an AAR update on, the Total Research potential is 809K.
Actual outpit including bonuses are: 537+945+296. More than enough.
Total Research Capacity is 725+625+525.

What I tried to say was hang back a bit with pushing your potential. Don't make something you know is a huge boost against the AI an complain it is too easy.

Some AI stupidity is hard to avoid exploiting, this is not one of those things. Btw, I believe my swarmers are also good on research now, even if they started behind. They are crazy at stealing research, and it is all by the AI

What I tried to say was hang back a bit with pushing your potential. Don't make something you know is a huge boost against the AI an complain it is too easy.

I understood what you said and I disagree. Asking the player to artificially limit himself and play poorly in order to keep a level playing field with the AIs is not the way to go. They need to implement a change, be that either along the lines I suggested or something better. But asking the player to break the game's own rules ("always keep a larger research potential than your actual output") right from the onset of the game in order to account for a poorly designed research model and AI utilization of which is stupid. This can be used as a temporary emergency solution to a frankly unacceptable problem that should have caught the eyesight of the developers immediately but is certainly not an option as a permanent solution.

While I entirely agree with you Apheirox I think we should take into consideration the fact that "the developers" is actually only Elliot. The game is so obviously imbalanced in many aspects that is clear it was launched with the ideea of "before you make something perfect make something perfectible" in mind.
So there is still a long way to go but the potential is there and Elliot is open minded so I'm confident that imbalances such as this will get fixed eventually.

Hi.

Something new from the developers?

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Soon... [8D]

Wooohoo!
Thank you one and all... [8D]

Guyz, if I install this beta will I have to completely uninstall then reinstall to play 1501 again? Or can the 1504 beta be installed/uninstalled with no problems?

that is a good question. I think Elliot responded way back to a similar question and said that all you need to do is to backup the executable before applying the new patch. In order to revert you'd need to replace the new executable with the backup.
I'm not 100% sure but this is how I remember it.

That does of course depend on whether the patch affects more than the executable.

Bug fixes (crashes) should be in the executable, balance adjustments (which are quite a few in the first post here) could be in other files. The missing space port issue could be both in the executable and in resource files, for instance.

As long as you can download older patches, reverting should not be a problem as long as you install from scratch...

Yes, that is pretty much the safe option....I think Apheirox wanted a shorter route. I wonder if we could just make a backup of the game folder and revert to it without a problem; it would be the easiest way to go about it.

That should be safe unless registry changes are made. And I would find it strange if a patch mess with that kind of stuff, it may happen to set version nr, maybe...

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Soon... [8D]

Spam.

Is it soon yet? [;)]

I'm guessing the earthquake has delayed this and it is totally understandable...family, friends and getting your life back together comes first and foremost. Patches can wait.

Erik just updated us on this, they are all safe and sound. Some property damage involved.

There have been some delays, but we are moving forward as quickly as possible. Everyone is well after the earthquake.

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
Everyone is well after the earthquake.

That is what matters!

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

There have been some delays, but we are moving forward as quickly as possible. Everyone is well after the earthquake.

Glad to hear that all are safe and sound down there.