No hostility throughout the campaign

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Most recent version.

I don't know if hasn't been implemented yet, or I was too well armed, but from 
the point where you have to capture the 5 Garthog planets, until the very end 
of the game I haven't been attacked even once.

Easy difficulty.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by sosetala...@gmail.com on 1 May 2012 at 12:03

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Garthogs seem to be too dormant, but nobody has sent me a save.

Original comment by akarn...@gmail.com on 1 May 2012 at 12:06

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Don't really know if the save file is enough or not. 

A Level 4 save.

Original comment by sosetala...@gmail.com on 1 May 2012 at 12:18

Attachments:

• default.rar

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Thanks. There seems to be a bad interaction between diplomacy, money and 
primarily defense oriented behavior.

Original comment by akarn...@gmail.com on 1 May 2012 at 12:29

• Changed state: Accepted
• Added labels: Milestone-0.96

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Original comment by akarn...@gmail.com on 1 May 2012 at 12:29

• Added labels: AI

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I might want to add that after I hit ~100k credit / day taxation, I set every 
planet to MI controlled and that totally broke the game in the long run. I 
always had maximum out of everything, and had nothing to worry about. Same 
thing with the autocombat. Against fully maxed dargslan planets I only lost 
fighters and barely any tanks. I don't really know how these algorithms work, 
but they sure are optimal as hell :)

Original comment by sosetala...@gmail.com on 1 May 2012 at 12:41

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If no cheating is involved, the game is extremely biased towards the player. 
More planets, bigger tax and better tech in the end.

Autobattle might be wrong due an issue with rockets. The algorithm works as 
follows:

- sum up all the hp+shield of your units (defense)
- sum up all your Damage per second on all units and weapon types (offense)
- compute how much time would it take to reduce the defense values with the 
offense
- that party wins who is faster
- the theoretical damage dealt during this time is then applied to the winning 
fleet, removing units as neccessary, but starting from low-cost to high-cost 
units, i.e., your battleships could survive.

Now rockets are trouble in this since they have 500 DPS and no capacity which 
is outright wrong. I.e., if you have 8 rockets, that should only mean 4000 
damage dealt over 8 seconds. After that only zero.

Ground battle is turn based where first the tanks fight each other with the 
same algorithm above, then defensive structures get attacked by 2-5 units in a 
turn based fashion.

Balance seems to be problematic as well. I couldn't extract any information 
from DOS IG besides the the obvious Damage points in the spacewar statistics.

The true AI strength can be observed in the Player vs. AI where AI uses the 
same human technology and has no limits on expansion.

Original comment by akarn...@gmail.com on 1 May 2012 at 12:59

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Yeah I thought it's based on something like this. Though, the problem is, for 
example an average dargsan planet had 3 Type3 bases, 4 meson cannons and one 
planetary shield. Now I tried to shoot every single rocket before fighting, and 
only destroyed the shield and one meson cannon (some of the rockets got shot). 
Then I moved my flagships and warships in one spot and tried to attack the 
bases one by one, then the cannons. They succeeded, but got hurt pretty badly. 
Now if I bring more ships, eg. cruisers, they'll destroy everything in seconds, 
but some of them might get shot in the process.

The same thing with the ground battle. I had ~60 behemoth tanks and rocket 
launchers. First I waited for his tanks to come out and shot them before 
attempting to take down the defensive structures. But in the process I lost 
quite a few tanks because of the bad pathing (the game's fault) and the lack of 
attack-move command. Then lost a few versus the ground structures. 

So what the algorithms don't take into account, is the bad pathing, which is 
coincidentally made the battles tedius (especially before units could stack in 
the space) and challenging at the same time.

Original comment by sosetala...@gmail.com on 1 May 2012 at 1:14

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Many changes happened in the last month. Do you still experience problems 
regarding the lack of hostility? The autobattle related issue will be handled 
in a separate report.

Original comment by akarn...@gmail.com on 28 May 2012 at 1:52

• Added labels: Milestone-0.95
• Removed labels: Milestone-0.96

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Well in my last playthrough (.421? maybe) garthogs seemed to attack 
occasionally with kinda big forces so that's OK I think (but I was well armed 
every time). The problem is, dargslans are relatively weak. When you start lvl 
4, you're neutral with all of the races, so you don't have to worry about them. 
Then I just casually start to research everything while colonizing as much 
planets as possible (to be able to research the most advanced stuff available @ 
lvl 4). 
To get the quest, you have to battle with a dargslan fleet (I usually use 1 
ship to trigger the quest), so conquering their planets (vice versa too) won't 
work. Now you obviously can't beat a dargslan fleet head on at lvl 4 (hence, 
the meson cannons) but regardless, their planets are weak as hell. If I conquer 
3-4 of them and then move to lvl 5, they only have like 8-10, while I have 
30,40+. Other races seem actually stronger than the dargslans (maybe the 
sulleps and ecaleps aren't). I quickly research meson cannon, fortress and 
behemoth tank then I'm pretty much untouchable. Even if the dargslans get one 
of my planets (they attack occasionally, just like the garthogs) in return, I 
conquer 4-5 of theirs.
I don't know what's going on in the background though lvl 1-4, but dargslans 
need to be more agressive towards others too and expand their territory much 
more. Because at  level 4, they could steamroll anyone with their meson 
cannons, but at lvl 5, they have relatively few planets (like 15), and others 
catch up with the tech too, so they're pretty much screwed.

Original comment by sosetala...@gmail.com on 28 May 2012 at 2:09

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Dargslan progression is suppressed for 4 weeks on level 4 to let the player 
time to colonize planets. AI in general favors weak, close by and most hated 
planets, so dargslans might be caught up attacking races between them and you. 
They attack randomly between 4-9 days. You can switch to them by CTRL+P and see 
how they progress. In my games, they have plenty of money and could run you 
down, but the AI handicaps prevent it.

Did you capture dargslan planets in level 4 without promotion to lvl 5? Thats a 
bug?

Did you use autobattle or just manual mode? Autobattle is a bit off now, could 
explain why other races with more rockets could defeat garthog ships.

Original comment by akarn...@gmail.com on 28 May 2012 at 2:27

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"Did you capture dargslan planets in level 4 without promotion to lvl 5? Thats 
a bug?"

Yes, sometimes I do that, and I don't really know how it's supposed to work 
tho. So the only thing triggers the lvl 5 quest is to directly engage with a 
dargslan fleet in the space.

"Did you use autobattle or just manual mode? Autobattle is a bit off now, could 
explain why other races with more rockets could defeat garthog ships."

I don't really engage in space battles until I'm fully equipped (usually at the 
end of lvl 3, before capturing the Garthog planets, and at lvl 5, before I 
start to steamroll everything with a 35000 army strength fleet) I use 
autobattle at ground fights. But I don't really know what do you mean by other 
races and garthog ships. They're wiped out before I come across any other race.

Original comment by sosetala...@gmail.com on 28 May 2012 at 2:36

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So level 5 goes like this for me :

1) I get a warning message about the incoming darglsan attack. I go to the 
planet and defend it.
2) I go to a nearby dargslan planet, and attack it (assuming there isn't a 
fleet there)
3a) I capture the planet with some or none tank losses ( and a minimal number 
of fighters, I never lose cruisers or battleships)
3b) All of my tanks are gone, I go to a nearby planet with spaceport, refill 
with tanks, attack until I capture the planet.
4) Repeat this until the darglans are no more, if they try to attack, see 1).

I haven't really bothered with diplomacy yet, because as long as other races 
are neutral towards me, they're not a bother.

Original comment by sosetala...@gmail.com on 28 May 2012 at 2:46

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Thanks for the details. I hardly ever get beyond level 2. I play, notice a bug 
or inconvenience, then stop playing for till I fix it.

If you don't mind, could you send me a save from lvl4 where you capture a 
Dargslan planet without triggering lvl5?

Currently, diplomacy is mostly random and doesn't depend on your state or 
actions towards the aliens beyond if you attack them. You could quicksave, 
negotiate and reload if the stance decreased. Unfortunately, I had no time or 
help lately to iron out diplomacy to be a more logical, i.e., aliens should 
turn on you or get mad if you ignore their proposals for too long. Many 
decisions, such as preemptive strike is hard without cheating since AI can't 
see your DPS if never engaged in battle. After that, you are in war with them 
anyways.

Original comment by akarn...@gmail.com on 28 May 2012 at 3:00

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http://www.2shared.com/file/OBtfNzJz/default.html

Interesting, if I attack a planet (with autoattack) and win, nothing happens. 
If I lose (the tanks only) I get the quest, and I also get the quest if I put a 
spy satellite on one of the dargslan planets. Also you could win the game right 
here, just try capturing the dargslan planets one by one, if there's no fleet 
present. Either you'll lose like 20 tanks or successfully capture the planet. 
With the capacity I have now, you could refill the entire 45 tanks in one day. 

Original comment by sosetala...@gmail.com on 28 May 2012 at 3:39

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Thanks, I found the issue: the planet was practically undefended, which means 
an instant win. (That was not covered by the scripting.)

Original comment by akarn...@gmail.com on 28 May 2012 at 3:50

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Original comment by akarn...@gmail.com on 1 Jun 2012 at 4:52

• Changed state: SVN

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Original comment by akarn...@gmail.com on 9 Jun 2012 at 10:48

• Changed state: Fixed