New CI bug with v1.41 ?
 

I wondered why the enemy races are more successful with their intel attacks in my new game (v1.41), so I have done some tests with my old "CI bug savegames", one of the CI bugs is solved now, thank you, Aaron:

Version 1.39:
8. Fixed - Successful intelligence defense would sometimes result in you having
intel defense projects more accomplished then when they started.

But it looks like we've got a new problem now, even with multiple CI projects with enough points accumulated, the projects always seem to counter just one Intel attack (maybe one per race?). Unfortunately I don't have a savegame with more than 2 races with intel points and with established contacts to each other, and I'm too lazy to create one now, so I hope someone could help me out.

What I have tested is this:

Race A has got 30,000 intel points distributed evenly to 3 CI level III projects
Race B attacks with 3 intel attacks (5,000 points each), one fails, the other 2 attacks are successful

Similar configurations (2 CI against 2 attacks, 4 CI against 3 and so on...) display the same, it's just always one attack which can be countered.

Could anybody of you who has a similar savegame (best would be with 3 or more races, to see if it's one counter per race *shudder*) check this out ?

Re: New CI bug with v1.41 ?
 

A possible remedy could be to use several Counter Intelligence programs at one time.

For example, if the enemy is performing 3 intels against you, you could counter by using 3 counter intelligence programs...

It's just a guess, but it might work. Perhaps it's even supposed to be this way.

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Re: New CI bug with v1.41 ?
 

That's exactly what I have done:

"Race A has got 30,000 intel points distributed evenly to 3 [THREE] CI level III projects"

Meanwhile I have done some more tests about that: It's ALWAYS the first slot of the intel attacks which is just countered, so if you want your valuable intelligence attacks to come through then you just have to waste a 5,000 point slot at the beginning (e.g. census thefts) and put the more valuable attacks to the 2nd, 3rd and so on slot...

Another bad thing about this is: the CI projects of the countering race will loose their accumulated CI points in all slots (one slot for each intel attack) although the counter projects (except one) will fail. And the (first) attack (the only one which is countered successfully) is not mentioned in the Log (like: "we have countered an enemy attack successfully").

Re: New CI bug with v1.41 ?
 

AAAaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrgggggghh...

I have lost 1,5 million colonists due to a cargo bomb attack (5,000 points, that's ridiculous against my severe multiple counter intel defense).

I'm going to work out a savegame now with the original folder, to post these problems to MM. This is an annoying step back...

Re: New CI bug with v1.41 ?
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PsychoTechFreak:

Could anybody of you who has a similar savegame (best would be with 3 or more races, to see if it's one counter per race *shudder*) check this out ?
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Very bad news on this question: All of my CI projects just counter ONE (the very first) attack and they fail on the next attacks which are done in the same turn. This means (even with 12 almost full CI level 3 projects):

Race 1 attacks you with e.g. 5,000 points and fails against your CI projects, if it has a 2nd, 3rd... attack in the same turn : these are successful although all CI projects which SHOULD counter an attack are reset to zero.

Every further attack of race 2,3,4... in the same turn are successful.

Unfortunately this is a systematic error, not a function of random.

Re: New CI bug with v1.41 ?
 

Drat, this sounds to me to be as balance-damaging as the fighter-stack bug that was in the previous revision of the game. Just toss in a diVersionary 5000-point intelligence operation on the same turn that your PPP or other big project completes, and there's no way to defend against it? It's like a covert-operations Version of MAD, as soon as two empires go to war they'll ground-contaminate each others' planets back into the stone age. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: New CI bug with v1.41 ?
 

Has there been any further testing/information on this?

LL http://seiv.pbw.cc

Re: New CI bug with v1.41 ?
 

I have created a savegame (original, without mods, ver 1.41) with three races under player control. Each race produces about 30,000 intel points, and everyone has established contacts to the other races. I have sent this save to MM. If anyone is interested to do some intel experiments then I would send it by e-mail.

Since this problem causes several balance problems (especially multiplayer) I disabled Applied Intelligence Tech and unchecked Allow Intelligence Projects in Game Settings for my games until this bug is fixed.

OTOH, if you like to experiment with this problem: since you only can counter the very first attack just use one CI project, the others are worthless... I sometimes have done this:
slot 1 : offensive attack with 5,000 points (because this one is the only one which could be countered)

slot 2-x : better offensive attacks (like crew insurrections)

slot x+1: about 30,000 (rest) points for one CI project

Re: New CI bug with v1.41 ?
 

Before 1.41 the PBEM games were overrun with fighters. Now fighters are less common. I suppose this new "feature" will mean lots of Intel wars with those who know about it having an advantage over those who can't quite figure out what is happening to them.

Glad I made one of my games intel free. Wish I had done it with the other.

Re: New CI bug with v1.41 ?
 

Hmm... well, to "fix" games running in 1.41 until the next patch, how about adjusting the points generated by Intel facilities in current games?

For example, the attached file divides all intel generation by ten. This will probably go a long way to restoring the balance, although it can very easily be set to other values as suits tastes and the size of the game in question.

Just copy this file to your SEIV/Data directory and overwrite the existing file. You may want to make a copy of your existing file first, but it's a very simple change (I just deleted six zeroes).

The next patch should overwrite this file, so assuming it fixes the bug, it should fix this hack as well.

PvK



[This message has been edited by PvK (edited 09 July 2001).]

Re: New CI bug with v1.41 ?
 

Ok, I have done some testing and made another observation.

Defensive operations that take longer than 1 turn never finish. If you have enough points to finish it in 1 turn it does, (more than 100K for level 1) but if a defensive operation takes more than 1 turn, no points get applied to it each turn.

I hope this gets fixed soon.

Geoschmo

Re: New CI bug with v1.41 ?
 

geo, could you test it again without offensive operations against your counter projects, please ? (I have problems to get to the next turn with your savegame, it seems to be a pbem/host thing, the game quits to desktop).

My observation is, the defensive projects get filled if they are not attacked by offensive operations. But every intel attack (no matter if successful or not) seems to RESET a CI project to zero points.

Re: New CI bug with v1.41 ?
 

Has anybody tried multiple "intelligence sabotage" (cost 30000) missions to see if they stop the "unstoppable" multiple offensive intel missions?

Slaughtermeyer

Re: New CI bug with v1.41 ?
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PsychoTechFreak:
(I have problems to get to the next turn with your savegame, it seems to be a pbem/host thing, the game quits to desktop.)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sorry, I forgot to mention that savegame file is a simultaneous turn game.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Has anybody tried multiple "intelligence sabotage" (cost 30000) missions to see if they stop the "unstoppable" multiple offensive intel missions?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I did not try that. I will give it a try and see if it works.

Geo

Re: New CI bug with v1.41 ?
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Slaughtermeyer:
Has anybody tried multiple "intelligence sabotage" (cost 30000) missions to see if they stop the "unstoppable" multiple offensive intel missions?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, another player tried this against me in a PBeM. I had a number of intelligence projects and a single counter-intelligence (it was the Last project). My enemy attempted (among other projects) an intelligence sabotage. I completed successfully all projects, then he sabotaged my counter intelligence...
Anyway, I take my turn before him (I'm player #1, he's player #2) so it's possible that this works the other way around (i.e., that I can destroy his intelligence projects...).

Re: New CI bug with v1.41 ?
 

In a PBEM game, I just had two cargo bombs and an engine damage go off in the same turn. The cargo bombs were in the first two slots. The first two were successful, but the third was not. The message I received stated that the intelligence project failed, but did not specify whether or not the failure was due to enemy defensive counter-intel. Is there a small random chance that an operation will fail without any defensive counter-intel to account for it? Does offensive intel take place after combat? Maybe it failed because during combat the ship had all of its engines damaged already.

Slaughtermeyer

Re: New CI bug with v1.41 ?
 

i think there is a random chance of failure, possibly based on the level of the project. i have noticed projects sometimes fail against empires with 0 intel points. in one game on 1.19, ship bombs would almost always fail, but ground contamination would usually go through.

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"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

Re: New CI bug with v1.41 ?
 

How about the amount of damage caused from ship bombs? Is that randomly determined? If I want to destroy a ship, will targeting it with two simultaneous ship bomb missions do the trick?

Re: New CI bug with v1.41 ?
 

QUOTE:
How about the amount of damage caused from ship bombs? Is that randomly determined? If I want to destroy a ship, will targeting it with two simultaneous ship bomb missions do the trick?
/QUOTE

I don't think it's randomised. Just as resource procurement gets you 10,000 + 10,000 + 10,000 every time, a ship bomb seems to do the same amount of damage every time. Not sure how much though, probably around 100 points.

You can use mulitple bombs on one target.

Oh, and if the target ship has armour, damage will be applied there first, but shields will be ignored.

Ship bombs are really good against smaller ships (&lt;Cruiser) and enemies which use shields rather than armour. It is sometimes still worth hitting armoured craft though - If you have a cloaked lookout in a system and can watch the enemy fleets heading towrds your systems, you can target larger ships to tenderise them before combat. Stripping off that crystalline or organic armour can really mess up their combat strategies.

Engine damage doesn't damage a ship's engines either, BTW, it just wastes a few movement points.

My favourite sabotage though is still cargo maintenence problems - get rid of those weapons platforms and fighters before sending in the troop transporters=-)

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"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"I think so Brain but, if you replace the P with an O, my name would be Oinky, wouldn't it?"

Re: New CI bug with v1.41 ?
 

There's still a bug in 1.41 that's been there from the beginning. The limit of 12 projects no matter how many points you have! If you get 3 or 4 enemies using intel attacks against you it's impossible to defend yourself even if you have more intel points than all of them combined. It's true that 1.41 seems to have worse defense effectiveness than previous Versions, but it was never possible to defend yourself properly against many opponents. Maybe a seperate list of counter-intel and 'other' projects would be a better way to organize intel. If you just increase the number of possible projects the problem gets worse. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: New CI bug with v1.41 ?
 

Baron you hit the same point I mailed several times to MM!
I really don't see why they abandoned the counter intelligence system of SE III. It was clear and easy. If you spend more points on defense than all your enemies together for attack you are protected, otherwise some of their projects will succeed.
The offensive intelligence however is much better in SE IV.

[This message has been edited by Q (edited 21 July 2001).]