UI Glitches

[raynor]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
You did originally say that the game did not do that, and it used resources to pay for facilities that never get built.

It's a bit confusing, yes?

Originally, I complained because I cleared the queue, and it didn't clear 'Repeat Build'. I ended up with three facilities in the queue with repeab build left on. The top item was a spaceport, and it built three of them.

Later in the discussion, someone pointed out that one of the reasons for multiple items in the build queue is so that you could repeat build a facility until the planet is full and then start producing units. They described a nifty neat new feature that looks to see if the planet is full. When it is full, the repeat build facility is removed from the queue, and the game starts with the next item.

The unique and quite unusual behavior that we discovered, though, is that once the game detects that the planet is full and deletes the top queue entry facility, it NEVER, NEVER checks that again. So, if you have a *second* facility in the queue, then the game will try forever and ever to build that item without successfully completing it. (And yes, it will waste those resources.)

DirectorTsaarx suggests an interesting use of this "feature" of the UI. You might use it to fill the planet, for example, with research centers and then start building the Computer Complex. The game would build Research Centers until the planet is full. It would detect that the planet is full and remove the research center from the queue. It would then begin building the computer complex.

The turn before the computer complex should be finished, the player could go "eject" the research complex. This creative approach would let you have four turns use of the Research Center before you ejected it to make room on the Last turn for the Computer Complex. (Normally, you wouldn't start building the Computer Complex unless you had an empty facility slot. Since it takes five turns to build the Computer Complex, you would have four or so turns of non-use for that facility slot.)

In my Last post, I was speaking specifically of the situation where you just have one facility in the queue. When the planet becomes full, the game removes this queue entry.

In one line of speaking, this default UI behavior may be described as the game "second guessing" your strategic decisions. It is easily possible to envision a scenario where you might want to repeat build facilities on a planet *after* it has become full. But the UI requires you to delete a facilty, issue a build order every single turn instead of allowing the repeat build order to continue and letting you just delete a facility every turn.

Now, that I've said that, this one should be easy:
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickeled peppers.



[ February 25, 2003, 14:21: Message edited by: raynor ]

[raynor]

Let me describe a much, much simpler--and quite trivial UI glitch:

In the diplomacy -> build trade screen, you have toggles that let you adjust the amount of resources you propose to give. There is one for 10,000 and another for 100,000. When you "check" one of these and then "add" resources, it does them in multiples of 10,000 or 100,000 respectively. But when you "remove" resources, it just does them in increments of 1,000.

Yeah, yeah, this is so trivial, even I'm not going to mention it outside of here.

[geoschmo]

I think the part about the resources being lost on construction of a facility or unit that never occurs is a bug. I wouldn't call it a huge bug, but it's a bug and in a perfect world ought to be fixed. But I guess that's where we get into priorities.

I don't think you can chalk it completely up to user error though. User error should cost you the loss of construction time maybe because you weren't paying attention. But where exactly do these resources go? They aren't simply vaporised. Even if you turned around and scraped the object you just built you'd get something back. Not the entire amount, but something.

Geoschmo

[Fyron]

Originally posted by raynor:
Let me describe a much, much simpler--and quite trivial UI glitch:

In the diplomacy -> build trade screen, you have toggles that let you adjust the amount of resources you propose to give. There is one for 10,000 and another for 100,000. When you "check" one of these and then "add" resources, it does them in multiples of 10,000 or 100,000 respectively. But when you "remove" resources, it just does them in increments of 1,000.

Yeah, yeah, this is so trivial, even I'm not going to mention it outside of here.

Umm... you can remove them in increments of 10k or 100k too, not just 1k.

[DirectorTsaarx]

Originally posted by raynor:
I'm pretty sure there weren't any log Messages. For the game to be consistent with how it handles units, I think there should be a log entry.

Well, then that's a bug. It ought to at least give a log message when it doesn't build the facility you wanted. In fact, I can think of another way this problem could occur; say you have a small world colonized, and the colonists breathe the right atmosphere. The colony has built the first 8 of 10 facilities, is just about to finish number 9 and then you drop some extra colonists that breathe the wrong atmosphere. Now the colony is changed to a domed colony, with max. number of facilities changed to 2. Obviously, that 9th facility won't be built (max number of facilities exceeded), and there should be some kind of log message about the failure...

Originally posted by raynor:

DirectorTsaarx: I'm not sure I understood the benefit of adding the fighter and then satellite order. Are these three approaches equivalent?

A. Your approach
1. Insert fighter build order
2. Turn on Repeat Build
3. Insert satellite build order
4. At a later time, delete the fighter build order

B. Second approach
1. Insert fighter build order
2. Turn on repeat build
3. At a later time, delete the fighter build order
4. Insert satellite build order

C. Third approach (doesn't require you to come back at a later time and builds 100 fighters in Groups of ten without user interaction)
1. Insert fighter build order
...
10. Insert 10th fighter build orderr
11. Insert satellite build order

Does that sound reasonable? It seems like the first two require you to monitor the situation every turn and then come back later. With the first approach you have already inserted the satellite order and only need to delete the fighter order when you come back. With the second approach, you have to do both the deletion and the insert when you come back. They both seem very similar to me. The third approach allows you to focus your attention elsewhere and know deterministically what will be built without user interaction. I'm not saying one way is better than the other. I'm just asking if the three are equivalent different ways to accomplish the same thing.

You're exactly right. It's a question of personal preference which one works best for you. The first approach is good for when you know you'll be away from the game for a couple days, and don't want to forget about building satellites when you're finished building fighters. The second uses pretty much the same amount of mouse clicks, and works fine when you're playing multiple turns straight through. The Last approach requires more mousing, but less attention in later turns (as long as you notice when the planet starts building satellites to turn on repeat orders; but you could just as well insert multiple satellite orders). So, like everything else, each approach has its own pros and cons.

[raynor]

Imperator Fyron, can you please try editing a package involving resources again and see if it isn't removing them in increments of 1,000. I just tried alternate ways of doing it to see if maybe I was missing something. It really does seem that it is. Thanks!

[Ragnarok]

I just tested this and it is indeed only taking off 1000, even if you havr 10000 or 100000 selected. It will increse the way its supposed to, but when it comes to decreasing it isn't.