simulating fleet strategies

Rusty_Nail · #1 March 18th, 2002, 12:23 AM

It is some time since I have played SEIV. I returned recently, trying SEIV gold, but have run into the same problem I had before as described in the copied exchange below a few months ago. Suicide-Junkie answered that time. But it just does not work for me (opening and closing the "fleets for player" menu, neither in Gold nor in the 1.49 Version. My question: can anyone confirm whether Suicide-Junkie's procedure works for them, and if so, if there is some other factor that may be preventing it working for me? This is very frustrating for me, as I consider this simulation quite important for the way I analyze combat stategies. Any help would be appreciated.

quote:
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For some reason I have never been able to put my ships into fleets in the simulator. I open the window, click "create fleet", type in a name, but then when I try to add ships to it by clicking on the ships, the fleet disappears from the right-hand-side window. Can somebody confirm that this is a bug?
suicide_junkie replied:

Yes, it is a bug, but the solution is quite simple (and I've mentioned it three or four times now in old threads)
Open the "fleets for player" menu, then close it, then open it a second time.

Everything should work now.
If you close the simulator, you will have to do it again.

Phoenix-D · #2 March 18th, 2002, 01:55 AM

Open the window, *add a fleet* (but don't add ships to the fleet) then close it. At least, that just worked for me.

Phoenix-D

Rusty_Nail · #3 March 18th, 2002, 10:43 AM

To Phoenix D:

Can you be more specific? There is no "add a fleet" button. There is a "create fleet" button. Is that what you mean? I tried that without sucess, both using cancel and accepting the new fleet, then closing �nd reopening. No difference. It seems I have clicked on just about every conceivable combination by now iwthout success. Can you give a "line by line" instruction that works for you and leaves no margin for error? By the way, if this bug is so old as Suicide Junkie says, and so important, why was it not corrected in GOLD?

PsychoTechFreak · #4 March 18th, 2002, 08:08 PM

quote:
Originally posted by rusty nail:
By the way, if this bug is so old as Suicide Junkie says, and so important, why was it not corrected in GOLD?

Because a workaround seems to exist, because it is rarely used, because nobody likes to simulate fleet strategies...

I for my part even have not been aware of a simulator feature like this, I will check it tonight. You also might find that the strategies do not behave the same way in the simulator as in the game combat situation. To simulate the real life, you could create a high-tech game, cheat codes allowed, 2 races under human control, very small quadrant (lower the settings.txt value for max. number of systems to 10). Let both races build their fleets (quick production with cheat code "money") and simulate a meeting...

[ 18 March 2002: Message edited by: PsychoTechFreak ]

Rusty_Nail · #5 March 20th, 2002, 09:18 PM

Psych Tech Freak, I am surprised to hear you say that few use this feature, especially if what you say is true (how do you know?). How else do people optimize designs? (Maybe they don't). You can, of course, limit yourself to one on one ship simulations. I have been doing this in an "all tech all abilities" environment and found(tentatively) the "best" ship (two actually)that are statistically best against all other designs at the same cost level in strategic combat. (In this connection, there are a lot of misconceptions on this forum about which designs are best). But what about two on two? Or three on two? Are the results the same? Not necessarily. Maybe people just haven't thought a lot about this aspect of the game, which has interested me recently. It is about getting the most "bang for the buck", which ought to be the decisive factor in an "expert" game where the margin for error is small. I look forward to seeing your comments when you have checked this feature out, and hopefully found out what I am doing wrong.

Zarix · #6 March 20th, 2002, 09:49 PM

I simulate fleet fights very often in multiplayer games. That bug is really anoying. Another bug is that after simulating the fight, the fleet disappeares from simulator. I have found that going back to the fleet window and pushing create fleet causes the fleet to magically reappear. But that isn't all that happens. Doing that causes my real fleets to disband. This happens in 1.49. I haven't tried it in Gold yet.

PsychoTechFreak · #7 March 21st, 2002, 10:17 AM

quote:
Originally posted by rusty nail:
I look forward to seeing your comments when you have checked this feature out, and hopefully found out what I am doing wrong.

Unfortunately, the workarounds do not function at all anymore. Maybe they have been "patched out" sometime in the past.

You are right, I think - if it would be in function, this would be a very good feature to find good fleet strats.

@The Generals, SJ, Phoenix-D:
Could you please confirm this problem briefly ? I have tried your workarounds without success also - with the following Versions: ver 1.49 and 1.60 Gold.

@rusty nail, if this is confirmed, please send a bug report to MM, best idea would be always a mail with a savegame attached, Version information and so forth. Otherwise your mail would become the end of MM's workload queue, that is from my experience so far.

Phoenix-D · #8 March 21st, 2002, 06:13 PM

Workaround works exactly as I described it for me- open the fleet window in the simulator, click the add fleet button, add the fleet, leave without adding any ships, come back and use the screen as normal. It does disband by real fleets from time to time though

Phoenix-D

capnq · #9 March 21st, 2002, 06:14 PM

I don't use the simulator much because it's cumbersome, and I've played long enough that I pretty much know what designs I prefer to use. I've also found that the results it gives can be wildly inaccurate compared to actual combat performance.

PsychoTechFreak · #10 March 22nd, 2002, 12:05 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
Workaround works exactly as I described it for me- open the fleet window in the simulator, click the add fleet button, add the fleet, leave without adding any ships, come back and use the screen as normal. It does disband by real fleets from time to time though

Phoenix-D

Nope, this workaround does not work on my steam PC. I guess I have to put this phenomenon under X-Files.