*Strange* behavior using P&N ... possible bug

[Pax]

Not sure if this has been observed by others; it might be the SE4 code, it might be somethign else entirely.

But, I've just been fooling around with P&N (against overly-easy AI, 'cause I only wanted targets to test stuff on not real competition, lol). Mainly, I was tryign to see HOW high the productionr ate could be pushed for normal races in that mod.

So, here's the setup: the race has Temporal and Organic racial technologies, Hardy Industrialists, Advanced Storage techniques, and otherwise normal construction aptitude.

I built a Sphereworld, and packed people in --- Temporal Cloning center, and a -big- population transport "making the rounds" (at 1B population per visit).

For a while, nothing I did could push the population above 60B (the world showed a 77B maximum). Dropping 1B people two or three times a turn, still nothing. Oh well, the construction rate listed as 110K, net ... not bad, I thought, if 60B is just some hard-coded ceiling for population I can live with that ...

The problem truly is this: after a fewmore turns, *suddenly* the population shows as 77B ... and there's NO MORE BONUS CONSTRUCTION RATE. *poof* back down to under 6K consturction rate.

What gives?

FURTHERMORE ... moving a bigger transport (1.5B population capacity) there, and loading population up ... then off ... reduces the population to 60B again ... and, what's more, the construction boost showsup again (in P&N, an astounding +2,310% boost for a 60B population).

However, I've also noticed, at some earlier point, the -production- (as in resources) bonus went away. 60B lists nothing, neither a + nor a - for population levels, to production, at all.

The race is emotionless (less MM while fooling about), so it's not a matter of an unhappy population.

Most vexing; being able to build battle moons with triple core-mounted Null Space bems in slightly under 3 turns is nice; having it suddenly shift to almost SIXTY turns, isn't -- especially when it shifts because the population -grew-.

Is this a P&N issue, or might it be a code issue ... a difficulty with populations above 60B ... ?

[edit] And yes, I'm keeping the savegame file to hand, in case folks think I should send it to MM; momma didn' raise no fools. [/edit]

[ July 29, 2002, 11:39: Message edited by: Pax ]

[Schwarzbart]

The production in compare to the people can set by the mod and I know that I have seen at Last 1 mod where very high population level have negative effect on the production!

You can view the productionsmod for each population level in the Settings.txt

Pop Modifier 1 Population Amount := 99
Pop Modifier 1 Production Modifier Percent := 100
Pop Modifier 1 SY Rate Modifier Percent := 100
Pop Modifier 2 Population Amount := 499
Pop Modifier 2 Production Modifier Percent := 105
Pop Modifier 2 SY Rate Modifier Percent := 105

The quote above is only a excample how it looks like frome the unmoded main game. (I dont have P&N so I cant thake a look at this mod)

[ July 29, 2002, 14:02: Message edited by: Schwarzbart ]

[Suicide Junkie]

Ah, yes. What happened there, was that I wrote a program to generate the thousands of modifiers to pop and SY rate.
But, I only had the thing go up to 64B, and with no modifier for higher values, SE4 assumed 100% (normal).

Just add:

code:

---

Pop Modifier 2891 Population Amount                                      := 99999

Pop Modifier 2891 SY Rate Modifier Percent                               := 2570

Pop Modifier 2891 Production Modifier Percent                            := 100

---

to the end of the pop modifiers in settings.txt, and increase the number of modifiers (top of the modifers area) to match.

As for the resource production rate, it maxxes out at 225% for roughly 500M people, and slowly drops after that until it reaches 100% at about 2 Billion.
Essentially, you don't get a bonus to resource extraction when you have paved over the planet for housing.

[Pax]

Thanks, SJ! Given how relatively quickly I was able to fill the population up like that, it could've become a serious problem.

However, that STILL doesn't explain the odd shifts in population (77B reported, offload 1.5B, drop that 1.5B back -- should be 77B again, right? Nope, it's 60B ... so where'd the other 15B people go ... ???). Hmm.

Anyway, thanks for the quick patch-up job for the population modifiers bit. Having the SY rate suddenly cut by ~20x was certainly a rude surprise ...

[DirectorTsaarx]

Originally posted by Pax:
Thanks, SJ! Given how relatively quickly I was able to fill the population up like that, it could've become a serious problem.

However, that STILL doesn't explain the odd shifts in population (77B reported, offload 1.5B, drop that 1.5B back -- should be 77B again, right? Nope, it's 60B ... so where'd the other 15B people go ... ???). Hmm.

Anyway, thanks for the quick patch-up job for the population modifiers bit. Having the SY rate suddenly cut by ~20x was certainly a rude surprise ...

I can't explain the jumps between 60B and 77B, but I can confirm that the game rounds numbers strangely for ringworlds and sphereworlds. I have a production modifier at 30B (29999 in the settings.txt folder), but if the ringworld description reads 30B I don't get that bonus, I get the one for 25B population. So I think the engine rounds population up to the nearest 1B at those levels of population. Maybe it's a similar bug for 60 to 77 (although that makes no sense)...

[geoschmo]

DirectorT, nothing wierd about what you are seeing, just simple rounding to the nearest 1B is all. If your limit is 29999M, and you have 27000M, it's going to show as 30B if it rounds to the nearest 1B, but you aren't going to get the bonus until you actually reach 29999M without rounding. The game does track the actual pop all the way down to the base units of 1M, you just don't see it from the planet screen.

Pax, yours is a bit more unusual. I have tried to duplicate it and have been unable to so far. I have been able to by playing with the planetsize text file verify that the game has no problem with populations between 60 and 77B. I have yet to exactly duplicate your circumstances yet with the transport moving the people in and out, but that will take a little longer to do.

Geoschmo

[ July 29, 2002, 21:33: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[DirectorTsaarx]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
DirectorT, nothing wierd about what you are seeing, just simple rounding to the nearest 1B is all. If your limit is 29999M, and you have 27000M, it's going to show as 30B if it rounds to the nearest 1B, but you aren't going to get the bonus until you actually reach 29999M without rounding. The game does track the actual pop all the way down to the base units of 1M, you just don't see it from the planet screen.
<snip>Geoschmo

Well, the weird part is that I only get the bonus when the screen reads "31B"; if I remove 1M population at a time until it reads 30B, and then check the abilities, I lose the population bonus for 30B population.
Edit: which means it's rounding up, not simply rounding to the nearest 1B.

[ July 29, 2002, 22:21: Message edited by: DirectorTsaarx ]