UFO:Alien Invasion
General => Discussion => Topic started by: morse on June 01, 2012, 04:33:57 pm
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Hi. This is the thread about my new autobattle proposal (http://ufoai.org/wiki/index.php/Proposals/New_autobattle)
For those of you who do not know, I'll describe how autobattle works right now: two teams stand against each other and fire at each other in turn, with the probability to hit calculated entirely from magic numbers and dice rolls. By saving just before the battle and reloading several times, you can as well win without a single casualty, or totally loose.
The system that I propose is of course not perfect, moreover, I myself already found a big flaw in it, which needs a bit of thinking. But I think that it's still better than what we have now in every way possible. For some reason the idea was fiercely rejected, with the reasons, which will much more apply to the current system than to the proposed.
Anyway, I was looking at the code, and I think I'm ready to do my bit in a noble task of making UFOAI better. The only question remains: how do you like the autobattle to be improved? I do not want to spent my time writing the code which won't be accepted, so we need to think of a system which will satisfy everyone. Or do you, seriously, think that what you have now is the best simulation possible?
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Or do you, seriously, think that what you have now is the best simulation possible?
No.
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Things that should be taken into account:
For Phalanx:
- The number of Phalanx soldiers involved
- Soldiers' average or combined rank, because rank reflects soldier's overall skill level. Perhaps grant bigger bonuses for the top three ranks.
- Soldier equipment: armor and weapon on hand.
- This calls for numerical values to be set for each weapon and armor to reflect their general effectiveness on the battlefield. This number shouldn't be a static number but more like 1-3 for a 7.62mm pistol and 4-6 for an Assault Rifle, and maybe 1-10 for a Laser Rifle. And so on.
- Check for the number of Medkits on the team. The more Medkits, the less wounds after the battle, up to a point.
- Optionally check for IR goggles if it's night. Lack of worn IR goggles during nighttime should be considered a penalty.
- Optionally check for other equipment in inventory, specifically hand grenades and extra magazines for the weapon. Ideally there should be a low probability that some of this stuff is consumed during autobattles, but if an item IS consumed, it should give a bonus to the outcome, i.e. less wounds.
For Aliens:
- The number of Aliens involved
- Alien types: Ortnoks are more deadly than Tamans. The lethality order needs to be figured out.
- Aliens get an advantage if a battle involves Aliens which autopsies are yet to be conducted by Phalanx, or alternatively, Phalanx gains bonuses after autopsies.
- Alien weaponry autobattle values need to be decided as well.
The autobattle mechanics:
- Individual soldiers and aliens are sorted into two lists. Aliens on one list and Phalanx soldiers on the other. Combatants are placed in random order in their respective lists.
- The starting side is selected randomly.
- Combatants shoot in turns, and in order, starting from the top of the list.
- For each soldier and alien there is a base 5% chance that he's able to interrupt on opponent's turn, aiming and firing at a random opponent. For Phalanx soldiers, this chance goes up with rank. For Aliens... I don't know. Shots are fired simultaneously. If the last two combatants kill off each other this way, the battle is considered a defeat.
- The side that gets to shoot at any time (with the exception of the first turn) is determined by probability, and the probability is determined by the number of combatants on each side. The larger the team, the larger the probability. This probability changes throughout the battle as combatants get killed.
- Higher soldier rank increases the chance to hit an alien, and the chance to NOT get hit by an alien (increased evasion and increased damage reduction), on top of the increased chance to interrupt (i.e. fire back) as described above.
- Each Medkit that a surviving Phalanx soldier carries has a 20% chance of reviving a dead Phalanx soldier, healing up to 20% of max health. Each Medkit also has a 20% chance of healing 40% of any wounded soldier's maximum health instantly after battle.
- Optionally involve the Mind stat of each individual surviving soldier carrying a Medkit to determine the healing chance or the amount of hit points healed.
- A 5% chance exists on each turn that a soldier or an alien uses a grenade from his inventory on his turn, wounding 0-3 opponents. If interrupt and grenade chance happen at the same time, one is selected randomly, in order to prevent both from activating.
- Phalanx soldiers gain double critical chance AND damage bonus if an autopsy has been conducted on the target alien's race. (note: implement critical hits)
One Colonel rank soldier in Nano armor, armed with a Heavy Laser should be able to wipe out a team of 5 unarmored Tamans all armed with Plasma Pistols, while sustaining only minimal damage.
One armored Ortnok, armed with a Plasma Rifle, should be able to wipe out 5-8 Phalanx Rookies (out of a team of 8 ), assuming their weapons aren't very advanced.
The big idea is that the Aliens have initially way more force and firepower on their side simply due to the deadlier weapons and the element of surprise, by which I mean that the Aliens know human physiology and capabilities but the Phalanx doesn't know anything about any of the Alien species. Until autopsies have been conducted, that is. Over time Phalanx gains bonuses on their side via research, better weaponry and battle experience (soldier ranks). This would mean that in the early stages the player is practically forced to manually handle the tactical combat, while in the late stages of the game, the player would have the best team with best weapons, and he's then able to autoresolve even the largest battles successfully, with minimal casualties (severe wounds at most but no soldier deaths).
More work needs to be done so that the player can make an educated guess if it's worth it to risk autobattle. Currently it's impossible to check the crashed UFO type, unless the player memorized it earlier. The exact number and composition of the UFO troops should be made visible to the player at some point as well, in my opinion.
Just my 2 cents...
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Frankly, I'd simulate the battle with both sides starting at large distance and moving closer while shooting.
2 (+-1) turns of long-range combat
2 (+-1) turns of mid-range combat
2 (+-1) turns of close-range combat
The number of each is a bit randomized...or could depends on the type of map. Large open maps could trigger more long-range turns, etc..
Next, during each turn aliens and soldiers take shots at eachother, with each soldier per side having a 25% chance to be behind cover (can't be shot at) and 25% chance to not have a LoS (can't shoot) every turn.
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Morse: I have two top priorities in any ideal autoresolve system. If you can find good, simple mechanisms for addressing these priorities I'd be more inclined to support your proposal.
First, it should seek to mimic the game mechanisms and principles which lead to success in the battlescape. This is an extraordinarily difficult task and I don't have a good idea how to do this. But I feel that all attempts to model weapon effectiveness by giving each weapon a rating, measuring the number of shots made/available, or gauging soldier effectiveness through skills/abilities/rank/kills will fall short.
A successful tactical battlescape mission is all about having the proper mixture of weapon capabilities in your team and learning how to deploy these differently-capable soldiers to support one another. Individualizing weapons, soldiers or soldier performance (shots/kills/rank) undermines this aspect of the gameplay, as I would be more inclined to simply equip weapons with high ratings. But a rocket launcher is a bad weapon to clear a building.
Your general approach of using past success and failure to model automission outcomes has some potential for addressing this problem, but it really risks introducting autoresolve as a macro-strategic gameplay mechanism: the player will learn it is in his interest to play easy missions and autoresolve difficult missions.
This intrudes on my second major priority: to ensure that the game provides consistent results that do not unbalance the gameplay. This will never be completely avoided. Any automated outcomes in the game will be exploitable by players that wish to save and reload until they get a good outcome. I'm not worried about this. Our game is just the type of game to attract save-loaders and that's fine. But what I want to avoid is introducing a mechanic that entices the player to use autoresolve to his advantage. This is also a very difficult problem and I don't have good answers for it.
But if you want your autoresolve mechanism to be considered more carefully, I would suggest trying to think about how you can address these critical issues in a simple mechanic that is understandable to those who won't be coding it.
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All this automissions are hell too much random. I should be very unlucky to lose all 8 soldiers to 5 aliens on Fighter in one manual fight. But auto mission gives me easily both result: losing all and killing all. Result should be more stable and predictable (given you know both teams and map).
Right now i'm using autobattle only to avoid things like this:
2012/06/01 23:35:28 ERROR: Could not find tile: '+craft_crash_fighter' in assembly 'alienlandingnature' (maps/frozen.ump)
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phew...
-geever
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I say we (you, coders) assign each map autobattle difficulty ratings as well, reflecting how hard it is to root out aliens in a given map. In some maps, the defending party simply just has an advantage. The player should be informed of this difficulty then before making the decision whether to resort to autobattle or not. The whole point of autobattle is that the player doesn't have to play the same maps a thousand times over. Perhaps the inherent map defense bonus should go down the more times the player has cleared the map? Or perhaps the autobattle option for a given map should be unlocked only after the player has cleared that map a certain number of times?
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That kinds fits with what I siad, doesn't it?
Given alien weapons are mostly plasma, close combat is what they would favor.
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Your general approach of using past success and failure to model automission outcomes has some potential for addressing this problem, but it really risks introducting autoresolve as a macro-strategic gameplay mechanism: the player will learn it is in his interest to play easy missions and autoresolve difficult missions.
Well, first of all - define "difficult mission". If we could express a "difficultiness" of the mission in a floating point value then it'll be really simple to make autobattle results really unsatisfactory for such missions. Or just disable this button completely, like: button is enabled only if expected autobattle result is very good. Also the results of "difficult" missions can go into the statistics with higher weight. This way it will be to player's advantage to play difficult missions manually (faster statistics improvement) and to not autoplay it (bad results which will ruin the statistics in no time, as auto results also go there, and this time even with higher weight).
So let's summarize: you likes the idea of using player's statistics to calculate the mission's outcome, but have concerns about player using it too much, so if I will come with some simple way of preventing player autoplaying too much missions - that'll do. Did I miss anything?
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If we could express a "difficultiness" of the mission in a floating point value then it'll be really simple to make autobattle results really unsatisfactory for such missions.
The difficultiness depends entirely on the player's play style. Some will do well in confined areas, some better in open areas. There's no magical value here.
So let's summarize: you likes the idea of using player's statistics to calculate the mission's outcome, but have concerns about player using it too much, so if I will come with some simple way of preventing player autoplaying too much missions - that'll do. Did I miss anything?
Not exactly. The player can automission everything if that's what they want to do. I don't care about the frequency of its use. Your plan to decay automission performance actually forces the player to play the battlescape even if they don't want to. What I don't want is to put a smart player in the position of knowing that he ought to choose automission even if he wants to play the battle himself.
Example scenario: I know the fighter_crash map has a high likelihood of my guys dying because they spawn without time to find cover. I don't want to autoresolve, but I know I'll get a better outcome, so I do it anyway.
I'm not sure I like the idea of using player's statistics to calculate the mission's outcome. But I will admit I like the way the general concept addresses the undefinable strategic environment of the battlescape -- the way in which successful performance is not easily reduced to soldier/weapon/map/alien ratings.
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Waht about my proposal H?
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Maybe we should remove the automission possibility completely. neither XCOM 1/2 or 3 had them.... Why do we need it?
-geever
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Maybe we should remove the automission possibility completely. neither XCOM 1/2 or 3 had them.... Why do we need it?
There are three reasons I can think of, only one of which is a clear necessity.
1) To work around map bugs during development, like Nokim mentions. This is critical, and really demands more of an "auto-win" kind of automission. I've only skimmed the console commands, though, so maybe one of them has the ability to delete a mission without impacting nation happiness (though ideally you'd be able to collect the stuff, too, so you don't need to wait for a second Corruptor if the first one happens to spawn a bugged mission).
2) To work around the fact that the missions can get pretty dull during the long stretches during which neither the aliens nor Phalanx are introducing any new species or equipment. This is better served by addressing pacing issues.
3) To address the (apparently non-zero) playerbase that prefers the geoscape game to the tactical game. This one's really just a question of audience choice.
~J
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Waht about my proposal H?
I can see what you're trying to accomplish, but I think it makes some pretty big assumptions. I'm not really in favor of a system in which we are supposed to give an arbitrary rating for a map, though I admit that some kind of arbitrary ratings may be unavoidable.
Maybe we should remove the automission possibility completely. neither XCOM 1/2 or 3 had them.... Why do we need it?
On a personal level, I'm a fan of removing it. But as Jon_dArc pointed out, it may serve a large proportion of our players. That's why my main concern is to prevent it from negatively impacting those (like myself) who don't want it. In some ways, the very random outcomes of the current system might actually be a good thing, turning the feature into a liability for those who want to use it but something to be safely avoided for those who don't. This puts the feature's burden on those who use it most -- an outcome that is not ideal but is at least less intrusive on the intended game mechanics.
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There are three reasons I can think of, only one of which is a clear necessity.
1) To work around map bugs during development, like Nokim mentions.
Your reasoning if wrong .We should NOT implement a feature to workaround a bug but fix the bug.
2) To work around the fact that the missions can get pretty dull during the long stretches during which neither the aliens nor Phalanx are introducing any new species or equipment. This is better served by addressing pacing issues.
The same as above. The fact that content is yet missing doesn't justify the need of the automissions.
3) To address the (apparently non-zero) playerbase that prefers the geoscape game to the tactical game. This one's really just a question of audience choice.
I prefer the geoscape game either. But the game would be boring if I only did fast-forward, start research, send ship stuff and the core of the game is the battlescape.
-geever
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Looks like the controversy behind autoresolve feature just revealed itself: you just do not know why (or even if) do you want it in the first place. As soon as you answer to that question, it'll be much clearer what kind (if any) of autoresolve mechanism do you want.
I agree with geever on the matter that the geoscape is the crucial part of the game, so it'll be a really stupid idea to implement the autoresolve mechanism which will allow to skip ground missions completely.
The autoresolve as a fix for mission dullness can be addressed by other means: 1) make missions more difficult. Not as much as, for instance, in XCOM-1, as we do not have the ability to save during it, but twice as many aliens per mission as we have now won't hurt. Also, the situation when in the beginning of the mission soldiers and aliens are standing face-to-face at the distance of couple of squares should be avoided, IMHO. 2) make less missions. For now, every single downed UFO generate a mission (if not downed in water). If you introduce some early researchable air weapon which will disintegrate smaller UFOs, it'll reduce the number of "dull" missions much.
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1) make missions more difficult. Not as much as, for instance, in XCOM-1, as we do not have the ability to save during it, but twice as many aliens per mission as we have now won't hurt.
This is something I really hope to adjust in the future. More soldiers to start with, but more difficult missions where you could lose half your squad if you're not careful. :)
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You can loose half of your squad even now to a unlucky dice roll...
Remove the HP restoring medikit and you'll see death rates skyrocket.
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[...] The autoresolve as a fix for mission dullness can be addressed by other means:[...] it'll reduce the number of "dull" missions much.
3) A very small chance of a special reward upon completion of each mission (without auto resolve). Some of those would only be available if certain conditions are met. Examples:
- Some ufo's could be carrying abducted civilians. For each civilian rescued, give a 1% chance of "recruiting" him into your ranks. Basically they would become available for hire after the mission, with their unit type based on what you might need the most, e.g. if you've recruited all the soldiers for this month but have plenty of the other employee types available for hire, there's a good chance the new recruit would be a soldier.
- If you manage to capture the ufo within a certain number of rounds, there is a small chance you could recover some data from its computer (provided you've completed the necessary research). The number of rounds could depend on the size of the ufo and its condition. The data recovered could for example spawn a single large (or some special type) ufo on the geospace and allow you to track it even if it's outside the range of your radar, or it could even reveal the location of an alien base, though that would be rare. Perhaps it could even boost a single research topic on alien tech, chosen at random.
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Personally I don't agree with penalizing people who do use it. I think it should just be an option for them, with a small degree of risk mixed in. It might be interesting to try to peg the level of risk with the player's playing style, ie a poor player has a higher risk in autobattle than a veteran- but I expect this would be way too complicated to implement.
I feel the majority of players (like myself) will avoid using autobattle and therefore be unaffected either way, simply because I feel that I can play it out better than the computer :p
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The true problem with autobattles is the Medkits - you can heal all the damage in the world with a Medkit during battle. Fix that and people would be twice as cautious to resort to autobattle, even if no one dies, but rather several agents become severely wounded.
Another problem is that soldiers' skills develop way too slowly (max 1 point per battle per stat). Losing a soldier hurts. If they developed faster, much faster, getting a single soldier killed wouldn't be such a big deal.
I think that once a soldier dies, the game should scan all the savegames in the save folder and remove the soldier from existence permanently. No more reloading after deaths. If someone wants to make and keep manual backups of savegames, so be it. In fact, it would advisable to make a manual backup after 4 hours of playing.
There's a reason autobattle was put there in the first place. Who was it that coded it? Who supported it? Ask those guys why it's there.
A game can become a chore. We've all been there. Having autobattle is a good thing. But autobattle should have its drawbacks, such as less loot, less soldier development, more likely civilian casualties (already there, I believe), more displeased nation where the mission takes place, etc. etc.
We DO all agree that current autobattle mechanic is... too random, right? Right?!
Perhaps opting for autobattle would be more interesting if there was a prediction of the outcome, calculated by the game? The way it would work is that the game plays the autobattle a hundred times over and then makes a statistical prediction based on the results. The prediction would read something like "High probability of more than one casualty" or "It's more than likely that all of your soldiers will die if no combat supervision is provided". It could present the best case scenario and the worst case, such as "Best case: Light casualties. Unlikely deaths. Worst case: Several soldier casualties." Or simply print out the raw data in numbers: 42.8% chance of losing 1 soldier. 1.8% chance of losing all 8.
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Your reasoning if wrong .We should NOT implement a feature to workaround a bug but fix the bug.
But this isn't a bug—it's an entire class of bugs. I haven't dug through to find the precise timeline on which they've been introduced, but apparently-new maps that don't load have shown up on a decently regular schedule. Especially considering that automission already exists, it seems a much more practical solution to use it to allow bypassing broken maps rather than whatever the alternative is—I guess it would be a much stricter quality-control and testing phase before permitting merging with HEAD. That sure sounds like a recipe for slowing down map development to me.
The same as above. The fact that content is yet missing doesn't justify the need of the auto missions.
Especially with the existence of debug_setinterest, I agree that this is not a compelling use case. I do still argue that it is a use case, and one that at least needs some more widespread knowledge of the alternative to fix.
When you're depending largely on a volunteer community for testing, "it'll be not boring eventually" is a less than compelling line of argument—especially when alternatives are already in place.
~J
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When you're depending largely on a volunteer community for testing, "it'll be not boring eventually" is a less than compelling line of argument—especially when alternatives are already in place.
But on the other hand — it'll be stupid to invest your time to some feature, which is there only as a temporary solution to the problem of the lack of content. I'd be more inclined to develop some actual content instead.
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... new maps that don't load have shown up on a decently regular schedule ...
What? Which?
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What? Which?
Right now I know two such maps. With bug Could not find tile: '+craft_crash_scout' in assembly
And the same error with "craft_crash_fighter".
How much time it would take to fix them i don't know... So, if you can't guarantee absence (or quick fix) of bugs there should be a way to avoid them. A better solution then just ignore such mission.
And yes, many similar mission in row is very boring (say, six base attacks in row, all handled by 4 soldiers without casaulies), so i would like a way to skip at least a part of them.
On the subject i can suggest not to set difficulty level to map, but to use in the autobattle simplified map geometry. So, team with many long-raged weapons can't be strong on map with many small passages and vice versa - team for close combat can't be good on map with vast open space (like dam or farm).
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I still think this is better than automission http://ufoai.org/forum/index.php/topic,6634.0.html
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Well, that's good variant too... But if you develop that idea, you should ask "Wait, those nations can shoot down UFOs too! Why i can't ask them?" They really can: pair of Saracen with modern missiles (no any alien technology!) can shoot down one alien fighter. This is expensive, that's why i quickly switched to lasers and particle beams later, but that is real.
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What? Which?
what nokim said. for example in console 2012/06/04 23:10:25 ********************
2012/06/04 23:10:25 ERROR: Could not find tile: '+craft_crash_fighter' in assembly 'alienlandingnature' (maps/frozen.ump)
2012/06/04 23:10:25 ********************
2012/06/04 23:10:30 Shutdown server: Server crashed.
2012/06/04 23:10:30 Unload the game library
2012/06/04 23:10:30 Music: geoscape track changed from Crystan-Geosphere02 to Crystan-Geosphere02.
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But on the other hand — it'll be stupid to invest your time to some feature, which is there only as a temporary solution to the problem of the lack of content. I'd be more inclined to develop some actual content instead.
I'm not sure it's quite as straightforward a decision as that, but fortunately it doesn't even matter—autobattle is already implemented. No significant time needs be invested into it.
~J
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Right now I know two such maps. With bug And the same error with "craft_crash_fighter".
what nokim said. for example in console 2012/06/04 23:10:25 ********************
2012/06/04 23:10:25 ERROR: Could not find tile: '+craft_crash_fighter' in assembly 'alienlandingnature' (maps/frozen.ump)
2012/06/04 23:10:25 ********************
2012/06/04 23:10:30 Shutdown server: Server crashed.
2012/06/04 23:10:30 Unload the game library
2012/06/04 23:10:30 Music: geoscape track changed from Crystan-Geosphere02 to Crystan-Geosphere02.
Not sure if serious, guys. If you are playing 2.5-dev you should not complain about one or two (out of 90) maps not loading. This is the bleeding edge of development - you should expect such things to happen much more frequently than they actually do.
Also, it is not a problem of the map(s) itself. And the map(s) are not new by any means.
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Didn't mean to complain, just pointed out where such problem lies.
On the other hand, the dev version is what is recommended here (which I find a little odd, usually latest stable is the "recommended" version but not in case of ufoai).
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I say that my proposal is still by far the simplest and most accurate.... 8)
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If you are playing 2.5-dev you should not complain about one or two (out of 90) maps not loading.
I was trying to play 2.5-dev and it was closer to 1 in 5 maps not loading. Of course that's because I had one of my two main bases at the South Pole and shot down alien craft religiously. Seriously, it's something like two out of the four Arctic theme maps that have the bug.
Also of note in 2.5-dev is that base attacks spawn your soldiers equally between ALL of your living quarters and your Command Center. A base with 7 labs in it will scatter your troops over five tiles worth of spawns. Base defence is a total nuisance now.
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Not sure if serious, guys.
I'm totally serious.
If you are playing 2.5-dev you should not complain about one or two (out of 90) maps not loading. This is the bleeding edge of development - you should expect such things to happen much more frequently than they actually do.
Yep. Which is why a way to work around the issue is so valuable—especially since the implementation work is already done.
(You may notice that the issue was brought up in the context of "what roles does Automission serve", not "the maps are broken, you incompetent jerks!" ;) )
~J
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Also of note in 2.5-dev is that base attacks spawn your soldiers equally between ALL of your living quarters and your Command Center.
They also spawn in hospital.
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I'm totally serious.
Yep. Which is why a way to work around the issue is so valuable ...
I think the bug should be fixed.
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But again, it's not "the bug". A week or so before, a different mission was failing to load for a different reason (sadly I was remiss in saving the log, but IIRC it got fixed). You yourself just said that it wasn't reasonable to expect these things to not happen. Or is there a specific overhaul of map/mission-related resources causing these bugs that's done or mostly done and thus we should no longer expect new mission-loading issues?
~J
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But again, it's not "the bug". A week or so before, a different mission was failing to load for a different reason (sadly I was remiss in saving the log, but IIRC it got fixed). You yourself just said that it wasn't reasonable to expect these things to not happen. Or is there a specific overhaul of map/mission-related resources causing these bugs that's done or mostly done and thus we should no longer expect new mission-loading issues?
~J
Afaik the "Could not find tile: ..." is one bug that affects two maps. The maps that were reported having this problem are +frozen and +mansion. You can load and play each assembly (version) of those maps in Skirmish mode without problems. Thats why it is not a problem of the maps but a problem of the map/assembly selection. Unfortunately +frozen is one of only a few maps we have for 'cold' environment, so it is choosen quite often, resulting in an annoying amount of broken missions if one, as Telok does, shoots down UFOs there regulary.
I am quite sure we could do an easy workaround. On the other hand, why not just fix the bug? It will take some time, but remember, this is a spare time project.
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Afaik the "Could not find tile: ..." is one bug that affects two maps. The maps that were reported having this problem are +frozen and +mansion.
You should add to list some map from Japan. I don't know exact name, may be literally "japan"? It lacks tile for UFO Fighter.
Yes, fixing a bug is the best solution, however i would prefer combo: if game encounter such situation it uses any other usable map/data and log(send?) detailed report on issue. Just crashing is too frustrating for regular user and you can't guarantee absence of bugs or quick fixing of them in "a spare time project", so why not use such workarounds when terminating a game is not really required?
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If one can provide a .log or a savegame about the +japan map I will add it to the tracker.
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Yes, fixing a bug is the best solution, however i would prefer combo: if game encounter such situation it uses any other usable map/data and log(send?) detailed report on issue. Just crashing is too frustrating for regular user and you can't guarantee absence of bugs or quick fixing of them in "a spare time project", so why not use such workarounds when terminating a game is not really required?
It is not only a spare time project, but also Open Source. So nobody will stop you if you start to hack this into the code.
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It is not only a spare time project, but also Open Source. So nobody will stop you if you start to hack this into the code.
I've tried once... And perhaps i will again because game crashes and hangs on exit every time (ticket in bugtracker 3529383). As far as i can say it's related to memory allocation and video driver, game reads memory outside allocated block.
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Reasons for Autobattle
For me Auto-Battle should be a tool when standards happen too often.
in an attempt to cover all earth quite early i observed that in that early stage the number of ufos rose with the number of bases. while i had 1 ufo per 3 days earlier, later on i had 2-3 daily
suggestions
global
- autobattle should only be possible when there is nothing new to the player: map has been played, all races are known (autopsy), all used weapons and armor are known, ufo type is known
- there should be a slight increase in performance if within the last 5 battles on that maptype at least 3 were played, and there should be a slight decay in performance if anything is auto-battled, not much but a slight bit
- that increase and decay should also be bases of the points gained by the soldiers
- generally points gained should be about half of those of a real battle max
- points gained should depend on equipment (weapon type), map type (more or less physical training on small/large maps, precision enforced or not), and other equipment (ie. intelligence <-> medikit and so on
per combat
- map types (close combat, open map, lots of hidings, lack of it) should favor one or the other weapon type. counts for both sides
- armor and race stats should have an impact (bigger one)
- numbers should have an impact
- weapons used should have a big impact
- skills of combatants should have quite an impact
- rank (=strategic knowledge) should have at least a small impact
most important of all:
runs should vary in result, but slightly. please don't create completely random fights. if there are 20 good equipped enemies that kill you completely in 1 run, it shouldn't be possible to kill them lossless in the next. use ranges to handle it a bit.
random fights should cover the easier battles, not the rare hard ones
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i observed that in that early stage the number of ufos rose with the number of bases
You're wrong. The number of missions spawned doesn't depend on number of bases you've built. It must have been a coincidence.
- autobattle should only be possible when there is nothing new to the player: map has been played, all races
Wrong: If auto-fight is available, player would know "ah... it has nothing new, interesting stuff for me", and will suggest using autofight. We don't want it.
- there should be a slight increase in performance if within the last 5 battles on that maptype at least 3 were played, and there should be a slight decay in performance if anything is auto-battled, not much but a slight bit
Again, no. The fact the same maps repeat too much is only that we don't have enough of them. You can find instructions on wiki about map making!
In my opinion, - and this will be the last time I write it down -, autofight should only depend on the soldiers/aliens incorporated in the fight and their equipment and some luck, yes. This includes the soldier's stats which improves by doing missions.
runs should vary in result, but slightly. please don't create completely random fights.
The current implementation is not yet complete, as equipment scoring is missing and stat scoring is maybe half-done. Noone wanna make them completely random, it's just the system needs fine tuning and some additions.
-geever
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in an attempt to cover all earth quite early i observed that in that early stage the number of ufos rose with the number of bases. while i had 1 ufo per 3 days earlier, later on i had 2-3 daily
The number of UFOs has not changed. It's just that you are detecting more of them because you have wider radar coverage.
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You're wrong. The number of missions spawned doesn't depend on number of bases you've built. It must have been a coincidence.
well, might be
Wrong: If auto-fight is available, player would know "ah... it has nothing new, interesting stuff for me", and will suggest using autofight. We don't want it.
I dont know who you address with "we", but i wrote down MY opinion to it, as far as i have read the thread, i'm not the only one there. nevermind.
Again, no. The fact the same maps repeat too much is only that we don't have enough of them. You can find instructions on wiki about map making!
i dont think that you'd want like 50 different fighter crash maps, thats about the number i at least played them without autobattle in one run. even if you'd have 10 of them I would like to use autocombat on some. you could handle it with "less fights", but would feel wrong somehow too. about the map making: 15-10 years ago i would have offered some help on coding, i've never been a designer. today other - smaller - "people" eat my time.
In my opinion, - and this will be the last time I write it down -, autofight should only depend on the soldiers/aliens incorporated in the fight and their equipment and some luck, yes. This includes the soldier's stats which improves by doing missions.
i have read your opinion before, so no need to write it down again. yet i think it should have another bases, as described above. i no more and no less wrote exactly that down.
by the way: about that point it felt like you took those things personal. wasn't meant alike. As far as I understood it it is a suggestions thread, and while that's the case I was free enough to tell what I think would be nice. Having seen lots of strategy games, usually winning them by analyzing opponent's strategies in several test runs, I think that I have some feeling to it.
I also know that i'm not THE guy to tell you something, only giving suggestions and "external" feedback :P
in that way:
have a nice day
btw: sorry for my English: non-native
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Realspirit - don't be discouraged from giving feedback because of the terseness of their replies.
They're kinda grouchy but they're good chaps and they do take what we write into consideration. :D