Slow AI turns (1.13)
 

Hi,

I've just started a second game of SEV with the 1.13 patch and the Balance Mod v0.95. I'm at around turn 40 and at least once per turn 1 to 3 random empires take a few minutes to make their turn. I don't know if it's related to the mod or to the stock version, and I don't want to start another game with stock up to turn 30 or so when it started, but I wonder what i scausing this.

I don't remember seeing that in my first game. I played it with patch 1.08 and stopped at around turn 60 when all my fleet supplies went poof, but IIRC turn processing was smooth.

I've read a few threads here and I believe it is related to empires engaging in combat between themselves, I just don't want to log into them and spoil the game by knowing where they are, etc. If so it's simply unbelievable.

I'm running on an Intel Dual Core Duo E6600. This CPU can re-encode a 9GB DVD into 4GB in under 12 minutes - allegedly, mind you http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif. I can't believe that half that time (and CPU cycles) is needed to process an AI turn, it's not like AIs are doing anything smart anyway. Did someone forget to re-comment some debug sleep loops? I thought it may be a dual-core issue, but it does the same when I set SEV to run on one core with SetAffinity.

So now it's bordering on the unplayable. Around turn 40 I do all I have to do in about 30-60secs, then wait 5 minutes for the next round. If only there was a real windowed mode - one that would scale to higher resolutions like the fullscreen mode does (I'm playing at a native 1600x1200 res), and that wouldn't induce a 10 secs mouse lag - I may be able to surf the net or do something else while the AI is "thinking". If I Alt-Tab out of a full-screen game turn processing just stops, the game does not seem to run in the background.

Any suggestions? (besides "take more time to make your turn to balance things out" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif )

Re: Slow AI turns (1.13)
 

I have had the same problem. Last time it happened it seemed to hang at player 13. Around that area, 12,13, was my Klingon set which the game said didn't have any flags. Seems to me the AI combat shouldn't hold things up so long seeing as how the ai can do it at full speed instead of basically slowed down for us to watch.

Re: Slow AI turns (1.13)
 

I gave up large maps because of this. Its all about the small map with low comp #'s! lol.

Re: Slow AI turns (1.13)
 

I am playing on everything by default, average map size I believe.

I've tried running the AI resolution phase 3 times from the same savegame. All three times it took 4-5 minutes (stardate 2043.2) I've had a different set of 2-3 empires doing combat or whatever they are doing when the game "hangs" for a few minutes. So if it's combat then AI actions are truly random.

I've ran Windows' perfmon to see how the CPU was used during the AI action phase. 100% CPU usage of one core of my E6600 during the whole phase, that's a darned big lot of CPU cycles. Then I figured out that SEV uses 100% of one core whenever it is in the foreground (in both single-core and dual-core modes), even when I am doing nothing but staring at the system view. It's not like it takes a lot of CPU to draw the little 3D graphics, my NVidia 7950GX2 should take care of that. As a comparison, with the same system in Everquest 2, at max graphics settings (but the shadows) and lots of PCs and NPCs running around me inside a city, I am using 40-50% of both cores. With that much CPU used in SEV I expect nothing more than a Kasparov-level challenge from the AI http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Re: Slow AI turns (1.13)
 

It IS combat that is causing this slowdown during the AI turns. I went into settings.txt and changed 2 values: "Space Combat Maximum Time (Seconds)" and "Ground Combat Maximum Time (Seconds)" to 10. They were at 300 and 180 respectively. And bingo, no more than 10 secs per AI player turn.

Now I don't want to break AI combat by doing this, so I'll just stop playing until a hotfix is released. I can't stand waiting for 5-10 minutes in between my 30 seconds turns.

Maybe there is a setting somewhere that will prevent AI combat to take place in real (non-accelerated) time in the background?

Re: Slow AI turns (1.13)
 

I too am having a significant slow down of AI turns after the patch was applied. In fact the game has forzen several times cuasing me to have too alt ctrl del out of it. Most frustrating.

Re: Slow AI turns (1.13)
 

In another thread, someone speculated the new delays are related to the AI chasing after other AI ships in repeated combats. In other words, pre 1.13, the combat between a frigate and a colony ship might just end unresolved until the next turn. But now in 1.13, the colony ship will retreat and the frigate will chase it--thus triggering a new combat. This will then continue until the strategic movement of either ship has been exhausted.

If this is the case, (and I have no idea since it was just someone else's speculation), then I hope Malfador will make the whole retreat setup a configurable option. In other words, with one toggle, allow folks to choose the limited combat map of SEIV.

All the alternatives seem significantly more complicated. Here are some ideas:

1. Increase the strategic movement expended when you retreat. Let's call it the "tax" on "flooring" your engines to escape and say that you instead expend two or more strategic movement points. If the AI turn delays are related to multiple combats, then increasing the retreat penalty to two lost movement points will at least HALVE the number of repeated combats. This may be the absolute easiest fix. (Again, this is all based on one long line of assumptions. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif )

2. An alternative that would be harder to code and probably not even remotely workable would be one where the game calculates in advance whether or not one ship is likely to pursue the other one, compares their movement points and then determines if one ship can retreat from the other one. For example, consider two scenarios:

A. A Frigate with more remaining movement points than a Colony Ship attacks the colony ship. Let's assume the colony ship will run and the frigate will chase. If the Frigate has more movement than the colony ship, do not let the colony ship retreat. Then, when the combat is over, you may want to set the Frigate's remaining movement points to Frigate Movement - Colony Ship Movement. Of course, to be "fair", you might say the Frigate needs to be moved in some random direction "towards" the most like escape path of the colony ship. But I say you should just forget about that one. Let's just say they had a long and circuitous escape route in just one sector.

B. A Frigate with less movement points than a Colony Ship attacks. Because the colony ship has more movement points left, it *can* retreat. After the retreat, the Colony Ship will have a new strategic movement total that is its previous total minus the movement points of the Frigate. Similarly, the frigate will have its strategic movement points reduced to zero. Again, ideally, you would might want both ships to have moved a number of spaces on the strategic map. Again, for the sake of simplicity, I say to just ignore that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Oops. I guess I better get to work. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Slow AI turns (1.13)
 

The reason this happened in the new patch is because of the new reatreat option causing multiple comabats and this point:

15. Fixed - Space combat no longer ends when the distance between enemies remains the same or increases.

In other words, many combats lasts for the full 5 minutes instead of stopping after 20 seconds, like some of them would before. There were slowdowns with AIs at war with 1.08 too, it's just become far more pronounced.

I think everyone should be mailing Aaron about this, it's really ruining the game right now. He needs to go through the AI vs AI combat code and speed it up *alot*.

Re: Slow AI turns (1.13)
 

I get the impression that AI combat is limited to 8x real time. Instead it should be allowed to go as fast as it can.

Re: Slow AI turns (1.13)
 

Yeah, I'm afraid that's possible. At any rate, Aaron needs to have a long look at it; it's the only real slowdown in turn processing. It was bad at times in 1.08, it's unplayable in 1.13.

Re: Slow AI turns (1.13)
 

Now I've got a "stable" savegame, i.e. in which the same empires generate a slowdown, namely 'Player 2'. I've tried playing with a few parameters in "settings.txt".

"Number Of Space Combat Turns:=30" does nothing to shorten Player2's turn when brought down to 1 turn.

"Create Log Text Files for Players:=False" and "Create Log Text Files for Players:=False" do not generate any log files when set to true, or I didn't manage to find them.

No other parameter seems to influence the length of Player2's turn, but "Space Combat Maximum Time (Seconds):=300". Player2's turn takes that very number of seconds, give or take a few.

I don't have much experience with combat in SEV. I have yet to fight a battle in this new 1.13 game, and have only seen one in 1.08. Do you think I'll completely break the AI if I limit its combat length to 30 secs? It would at least make the game playable for me before the next patch. How long does an average combat take?

Also, since all else failed, I've finally tried logging into Player2's empire to see what was going on. I remember doing that in SEIV, but to my deepest shame I can't find a way to do it in SEV. Help!

Re: Slow AI turns (1.13)
 

I'd agree that it has to do with combat. In SE4, combat did significantly increase turn processing. There may be other areas to look at, though, such as AI pathing. See other discussion here:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...&Forum=f23,f204,f199,f150,f59,f128,f105,f200,f201,f202&W ords=ssd&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Main=45 9613&Search=true&where=bodysub&Name=26 69&daterange=1&newerval=5&newertype=w& amp;olderval=&oldertype=&bodyprev=#Post461 910

Re: Slow AI turns (1.13)
 

No other parameter seems to influence the length of Player2's turn, but "Space Combat Maximum Time (Seconds):=300". Player2's turn takes that very number of seconds, give or take a few.

If you turn that one down to 1 you'll probably see a gigantic increase, since combats will be limited to 1 second. I suppose turning it down to a more reasonable number, say 90 or 120( not that many *real*, i.e. not chasing, combats last more than a minute anyway), would probably cut processing time in half depending on how many seperate combats the AI is doing, while still maintaning an acceptable combat length.

Re: Slow AI turns (1.13)
 

That's what I said: 'Nothing helps, BUT "Space Combat Maximum Time (Seconds)"' http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. When set to 10 secs, Player2's turn takes 10 secs. I was asking whether 30 secs wouldn't break the AI. Because with an average of 2-3 AIs fighting in the same turn I'll be having them waste 1-1.5 mins of my time staring at a black screen, on every turn. I wouldn't wait more than that.

Edit: Also, how do I log into a computer-controlled empire?

Re: Slow AI turns (1.13)
 

Sorry, must have misread you.

You can log into player 2 by going to the menu->players and deselecting the second player on the list. You'll need a password to enter the list and to log into the player, though. Unless you changed it, the password will be 'master'.

Anyway, you're not waiting for the duration of 'space combat maximum time'. The space combats go at an 8x speed or faster( which means the longest combat takes 300/8 seconds or less). The problem is that an AI empire can sometimes have 8+ combats in a single turn. I'd try putting it at 60 at the lowest; lower than that and you risk *real fights* not getting finished.

Re: Slow AI turns (1.13)
 

More news from the frontline. Thanks to Raapys I managed to log into Player2.

In that "stable" savegame Player2's turn takes about 50 secs. What he does is move half a dozen ships, colonizes a planet and gets into one combat situation: his 3 fresh DU frigates attack 3 enemy badly damaged DU frigates. 1 is immobilized, one has 1 working engine and flees, the 3rd one engages. This combat takes about 1min 50 secs at x1 time acceleration. I've only been through it in Tactical Mode, in Strategic Mode, regardless of the time acceleration, the game crashes when I close the combat window.

With my E6600 CPU I can't imagine the AI taking more than a handful of seconds to plan his turns at stardate 2043.2. Then there is no way this very combat action runs at x8, looks more like a x2 time factor. If it did run at x8 that would give about 12 secs for the combat, and about 38 for turn planning/execution? Sounds too much. First, other empires, when no combat is taking place, have their turn planned and executed in 2-3 secs on the black screen. Second, this CPU can create a unique index on 43 million rows on two columns in about 1 minute (with Oracle) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. That's a bit more work than planning actions for a rather silly AI http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif.

So IMO either combat is taking place at a x2 acceleration, colonizing a planet is taking like 30 secs, or there are some mystical Forces of Evil at work.

In case anyone knows how to turn debugging on and want to figure out what is going on, help Aaron and all, here is the savegame. And BTW I wouldn't mind knowing how to turn debugging on too, and where to look for the log.

Re: Slow AI turns (1.13)
 

It's so frustrating to have the game finally playable only to have these long turns stop me from playing.

Re: Slow AI turns (1.13)
 

Maybe, if enough people state that this bug actually made the game unplayable, unlike all other issues, this may warrant a quick hotfix for this issue only, instead of having us wait for another two weeks for a full 1.18 (or something) patch.

Re: Slow AI turns (1.13)
 

Got the same problem since 1.13
Turns are taking forever, and even in the early game it takes a lot longer than before 1.13

Inti,

Re: Slow AI turns (1.13)
 

This combat takes about 1min 50 secs at x1 time acceleration.

Unfortunately that's not of much help; there are random factors involved in combat. I've done the same combats again and again and got very different results some of the times.

I agree that we all should be mailing Aaron about this, though. I've turned down the maximum combat time to 90 seconds myself, which helped a bit, but it's still far slower than it should be. Biggest issue there is, right now. If the next patch is supposed to be in a couple of weeks we'll probably not get anything before that, though.

Re: Slow AI turns (1.13)
 

Ohn the results of Player2's attack are pre-determined: 3 fresh frigates on one side, and on the other, one damaged yet still mobile one, one half-crippled and one immobile. The half-mobile one tries to slowly get away. The mobile one gallantly charges towards the 3 assailants and explodes after about 3 volleys. Then it's the turn of the immobile one, a few shots and it's over. Then the fleeing one is slowly caught and after a short exchange of fire it goes boom. Not much variance here, I've ran it many times, the duration may vary by a few seconds depending on the dice rolls. It's still much closer to x2 than x8 or "as fast as possible while the player stares at a black screen" combat resolution speed.

That would be a big bummer. It's not like the emissive armor is not working on troops, or ship crews not dying issues. This problem makes the game literally unplayable for many people. Having many people unable to play your game for weeks while you are fixing gameplay bugs is not the way to go, other companies issue a hotfix in cases like this. Crossing my fingers...

Tried another turn yesterday evening. According to my kitchen eggtimer the AI processed its turns in 6min 55secs. Now I'm really done with 1.13.

Re: Slow AI turns (1.13)
 

Yeah, it's taking way too long. I'm gonna try the new Balance version soon though, Kwok's apparantly addressed the slowdown somewhat; might be a temporary fix.