Status of systems not presently seen

[Fyron]

Is there any mods which use a lot of long range scanners? I think it should be improved a lot, for example scanning automatically all nearby ships and storing scanned designs.

Adamant, for example, removes the Scattering Armor and makes Scanner Jammers 50 kT. Want to be paranoid and protect all ships from scanners? Gonna cost you a lot of space and you don't get ECM out of it even.

It wouldn't be a problem to save all information about scanned ships. If you have 200 ships in your scanner range, are you really going to click them all through?

I might want to (or someone else might want to). So it has to be stored.

Thus the amount of space needed for scanned ships is directly proportional the number of ships scanned (=clicked) and I believe even 100 would be a lot then.

What if I want to see a different ship's damage on a later turn than I viewed originally?

There's no repair components in some mods?

No... some mods are designed to end battles with a huge number of damaged components (specifically, 1 kT armor components). P&N, B5 Mod, Adamant, etc. Repairing a bunch of such damaged ships takes a while, unless you go overboard on the repair ships in your fleets.

I dare to say this is quite unusual situation. Think about it, you're chased by a fleet of 1000s of ships, the name of every ship is changed every turn, all of those ships took damage every turn, you have scanners present and manually click through all ships every turn. If all conditions aren't met then the required space for data isn't very big.

The fact that all of those could happen means that it has to be taken into account. Optimizations should be used, of course. Frequent name changes are not common. But frequent changes in damaged status can very will be (especially in some mods ).

19 bytes to tell which empires see the planet? Now I don't wonder why you think there's going to be such a big increase in savegame files. I think 2.5 bytes would be enough.

You need a bool for each other empire... 1 byte per bool, 19 bools, 19 bytes. Unless you are writing your own programming language and can make custom sized variables...

But your approach to this savegame issue is different than mine Fyron.

I don't know about that.... well, other than you keep wanting to drop necessary data that must be stored.

Have you all the time thought I mean there is one planet data and then flags for empires who see it.

No. That was started in response to a very specific suggestion, actually made by DavidG.

It's not practical and it won't work because all empires have a different view about that planet depending when they have left from the system. I mean every empire has its own data for every system the empire doesn't presently see.

That is what I have been saying...

[ December 03, 2003, 18:03: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Fyron]

Originally posted by Argitoth:
Why does "repeat build" only repeat the first thing on the list? I'd like to set up 5 or 6 things to build and set it to repeat. But it only repeats the first item on the list.

Because that is how it works. It repeats the first item, not the whole queue. A new "repeat queue" order should be added.

[Asmala]

quote:

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It wouldn't be a problem to save all information about scanned ships. If you have 200 ships in your scanner range, are you really going to click them all through?

I might want to (or someone else might want to). So it has to be stored.

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He who wants to click through 200 ships to scan them all please raise your hand. What? I see no hands. But it's my greatest pleasure to click through all 200 ships every time I see them.

What if I want to see a different ship's damage on a later turn than I viewed originally?

You haven't clicked the ship, you haven't scanned the ship, you can't have the ship's information. That's the way long range scanners work now

quote:

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I dare to say this is quite unusual situation. Think about it, you're chased by a fleet of 1000s of ships, the name of every ship is changed every turn, all of those ships took damage every turn, you have scanners present and manually click through all ships every turn. If all conditions aren't met then the required space for data isn't very big.

The fact that all of those could happen means that it has to be taken into account. Optimizations should be used, of course. Frequent name changes are not common. But frequent changes in damaged status can very will be (especially in some mods ).

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Fyron, you can't be serious. You mean you think seriously that someone clicks through 1000 ships each turn to get a information about possible damage changes, and over 1% of ships has different damage status than earlier. That's like you'd make the game to use 32-bits integer numbers for number of components in case someone like to add that many components

You need a bool for each other empire... 1 byte per bool, 19 bools, 19 bytes. Unless you are writing your own programming language and can make custom sized variables...

I thought there goes 8 bools in a byte...

I don't know about that.... well, other than you keep wanting to drop necessary data that must be stored.

Yep. It seems we have a different definition for "necessary"

[Fyron]

He who wants to click through 200 ships to scan them all please raise your hand. What? I see no hands. But it's my greatest pleasure to click through all 200 ships every time I see them.

You would be surprised...

You haven't clicked the ship, you haven't scanned the ship, you can't have the ship's information. That's the way long range scanners work now

Either way, that data needs to be stored in the Last system seen info stuff.

Fyron, you can't be serious. You mean you think seriously that someone clicks through 1000 ships each turn to get a information about possible damage changes, and over 1% of ships has different damage status than earlier.

You would be surprised.

That's like you'd make the game to use 32-bits integer numbers for number of components in case someone like to add that many components

That is just silly. You use a vector so it doesn't matter and there is no limit to the number of comps that can be added to a ship.

I thought there goes 8 bools in a byte...

I guess it depends on the programming language. C++ bools are 1 byte. 0 is false, any other value is true (and those values can be lots of things other than just 1 ). MM uses Delphi, which IIRC is similar to C++.

Yep. It seems we have a different definition for "necessary"

Yeah, you regard necessary information as unnecessary. The thing is, people do make use of this questioned information, so it has to be stored. Otherwise, you would tick off a portion of the fan base.

[Asmala]

Either way, that data needs to be stored in the Last system seen info stuff.

Why? If you don't have the data why it needs to be stored?

I guess it depends on the programming language. C++ bools are 1 byte. 0 is false, any other value is true (and those values can be lots of things other than just 1 ). MM uses Delphi, which IIRC is similar to C++.

It it indeed depends on the programming language. C++ bools are 1 byte, but it's not difficult to make a new class which stores 8 bools to one char. I have never programmed with Delphi, but I believe it's possible to make bools of one bit if necessary.

Yeah, you regard necessary information as unnecessary. The thing is, people do make use of this questioned information, so it has to be stored. Otherwise, you would tick off a portion of the fan base.

You mean if MM makes a new addition so an empire can see systems like they were when the empire Last saw them, but the ship names and damage isn't included, it would tick off a portion of the fan base? You have a funny way to draw conclusions.

[Parasite]

I rename each game file to the name+turn number. The logs and combat replays will not work, but you can view systems and click through ships. It is a pain and having it on the current screen would be better.

The point is that maybe ALL the detail is not needed, maybe just enough to show you you need to look deeper.

[ December 04, 2003, 15:58: Message edited by: Parasite ]

[Fyron]

Why? If you don't have the data why it needs to be stored?

If the Last thing you saw was a ship with long range scanners that got destroyed, then the Last thing you saw was scans of the ships.

You mean if MM makes a new addition so an empire can see systems like they were when the empire Last saw them, but the ship names and damage isn't included, it would tick off a portion of the fan base? You have a funny way to draw conclusions.

Although you may not enjoy roleplaying your empire, there are a lot of people that do. Ship names are just one aspect of the RP supported by SE4. MM has made efforts to increase the amount of RP in the game from SE3 to SE4, so I doubt they would be willing to add a feature that cuts any of it.

The Last scan should be stored anyways even for ships you can see that are not in scanner range. What, your scan logs get wiped every day?