Bacon Mod

[Pocus]

How are used scientific data in the first place?

re Helium: I'm surprised you did not see that everytime an upgrade requires helium, the mining station is stalled. But I play without automation and slowly (the pleasure is in the journey, not the destination [:)] )

I'm at loss about understanding how to deal with these fighter / bomber bays. I have now superior bombers compared to fighters, but all my bombers are still producing only fighters. I have to manually scrap some fighters to make room for bombers. How to have bomber bays produce bombers, and fighter bays produce fighters.
It even went worse when I discovered a new bomber tech, all my current bombers on all my ships got deleted and replaced by ... fighters being built!

[RogerBacon]

ORIGINAL: Pocus

How are used scientific data in the first place?

Each month each lab on a science ship will consume 1 point of scientific data to process its research for each of the types of labs it has. Scince ships are something unique to the Bacon Mod so there's no vanilla DWU default value. If a science ship has insufficient scientific data then its labs will sit idle.

re Helium: I'm surprised you did not see that everytime an upgrade requires helium, the mining station is stalled. But I play without automation and slowly (the pleasure is in the journey, not the destination [:)] )

I'm glad you brought this up again. I had forgotten about it and I wanted to look into it.
[Edit]. Well, that was fast. The reason it is not stockpiled on bases for upgrade is because in the Retreat + Bacon + Das mod it is considered a fuel resource. Fuel resources are not stockpiled. In vanilla DWU only Caslon and Hydrogen are fuel sources.

I'm at loss about understanding how to deal with these fighter / bomber bays. I have now superior bombers compared to fighters, but all my bombers are still producing only fighters. I have to manually scrap some fighters to make room for bombers. How to have bomber bays produce bombers, and fighter bays produce fighters.
It even went worse when I discovered a new bomber tech, all my current bombers on all my ships got deleted and replaced by ... fighters being built!

Any fighter bay with the word "Bomber" in the name should only produce bombers. Any other fighter bay should only produce fighters. You are playing Das's combined mod, right? Are you sure you are putting bomber bays on and not fighter bays? When auto-refiting unfortunately the AI will pick the first matching component so you will have all bombers or all fighters. You will have to manually design the refit for any ship that has fighters and bombers.

[DasTactic]

ORIGINAL: Pocus

I'm at loss about understanding how to deal with these fighter / bomber bays. I have now superior bombers compared to fighters, but all my bombers are still producing only fighters. I have to manually scrap some fighters to make room for bombers. How to have bomber bays produce bombers, and fighter bays produce fighters.
It even went worse when I discovered a new bomber tech, all my current bombers on all my ships got deleted and replaced by ... fighters being built!

As Roger said the carrier designs need to be manually tweaked and manually upgraded otherwise they will only start or upgrade with Fighter Bays. There isn't a way I know of to specify the two types of bays in the design templates.

[Pocus]

This is what I checked first, and I can assure you these are bomber bays. I also knew from experience that auto-upgrade converts bombers bays to fighters bays.

But ... it works now! It works since I updated my customization folder with latest data files from Das combo mod 1.06. Before I was with the version that was out around 10 days ago. As I still don't understand how the game differentiates between a fighter and a bomber bay (given that in components.txt, you can't define a 'bomber bay', just a 'fighter bay'), I would still be interested by an explanation leading to the disappearance of the bug, if you please [:D]

Anyway thanks, this was quite a bother to manually delete fighters, then order new bombers.

@Roger, re Market Price.
I'm afraid I don't get exactly how to play the free trader game. For me the prime parameter that drives a market is availability. i.e most of the time, things are cheap when they abound, and they are costly when they are rare.
I have a case where Earth was in severe shortage of Carbon, whereas a young colony on a Swamp world had some 4000 in stockpile. So free trader... Except no. I ended up with carbon that had been more pricey to buy from this swamp world than the selling price at Earth. It makes no sense to me.
Now, you'll tell me the prices also vary with taxes. Except in this case Earth is at 15%, and the young colony at 0%. So it even adds insult to injury somehow!
My parameter in bacon setting is on default for the market stuff, so in theory an 'easy market', but definitively no.

Side note, I see as an unnecessary constraint to change prices for a free trader having mining module. Why do that. If I'm a miner, why should I not get 'free money' from mining? It is not free money, I pay the upkeep on my ship. And if you fear any exploit, it is already possible to do a lot of exploits with state freighters. But that's my 2 cents, as this is your work and code, if you believe that's the best way, I'll rest my case. I just had to try convincing you, once!

[DasTactic]

ORIGINAL: Pocus

This is what I checked first, and I can assure you these are bomber bays. I also knew from experience that auto-upgrade converts bombers bays to fighters bays.

But ... it works now! It works since I updated my customization folder with latest data files from Das combo mod 1.06. Before I was with the version that was out around 10 days ago. As I still don't understand how the game differentiates between a fighter and a bomber bay (given that in components.txt, you can't define a 'bomber bay', just a 'fighter bay'), I would still be interested by an explanation leading to the disappearance of the bug, if you please [:D]

Anyway thanks, this was quite a bother to manually delete fighters, then order new bombers.

I'm not sure we should be talking with France and Australia playing in the World Cup now.

I had originally assumed the Fighter and Bomber issue was something to do with the Bacon Mod but when I tested it on various other mods they all worked except for RetreatUE. The difference was that the first tech level didn't have any fighters or bombers but all the other mods did. So I made a really weak version of those and included them in. This allowed the game to start with existing differentiation between the types. If you read through the comments you'll see all the different things I tried before I hit on the solution.

[Pocus]

Oh ok, thanks!

I'm not much into soccer, so I won't hold you any grudge about the outcome of the next match, provided France wins, that is [:D]

[Pocus]

Can't resist posting this one. This huge constructor (see the others freighters around) has only an interest of being so oversized because of the Bacon mod. It holds 65.000 cargo units, has 50 thrusters, the armament of a cruiser and redundant systems on ECM, ECCM, etc. Also 8 marine detachments (boarding pods) make sure intruders will have a bad time.

So why it's of interest? Because I got bored of seeing my constructors plant a facility, then move back 2 sectors to a planet with enough resources, rinse and repeat. This ship is tagged as Free Trader, and has enough resources in its hold to build several installations in a row in a distant system. It makes much more sense to me. Is it too powerful/exploitive? well given I play against hard AIs and with self imposed house rules on diplomacy and colonization, I can do that without remorse I believe [:D]

[RogerBacon]

ORIGINAL: Pocus

@Roger, re Market Price.
I'm afraid I don't get exactly how to play the free trader game. For me the prime parameter that drives a market is availability. i.e most of the time, things are cheap when they abound, and they are costly when they are rare.
I have a case where Earth was in severe shortage of Carbon, whereas a young colony on a Swamp world had some 4000 in stockpile. So free trader... Except no. I ended up with carbon that had been more pricey to buy from this swamp world than the selling price at Earth. It makes no sense to me.
Now, you'll tell me the prices also vary with taxes. Except in this case Earth is at 15%, and the young colony at 0%. So it even adds insult to injury somehow!
My parameter in bacon setting is on default for the market stuff, so in theory an 'easy market', but definitively no.

Perhaps this is another example of my poor documenting skills. That tax is only applied when a resource is SOLD. You can buy at high tax planets and it doesn't affect the price. Ideally you should be selling to smaller colonies where the tax rate is zero but, of course, they have a lower market liquidity so you may have to inject some cash by buying something there as well.
Scarcity is only lightly modeled. If a location has a shortage the price is increased. Also, if a location is under trade sanctions the price will be increased. Also, independent planets always have a tax rate of zero. They are good places to sell.
If you really want to play the free trader game, make several free traders (free trader company) and have them at different locations at different times so you cna check prices.

Side note, I see as an unnecessary constraint to change prices for a free trader having mining module. Why do that. If I'm a miner, why should I not get 'free money' from mining? It is not free money, I pay the upkeep on my ship. And if you fear any exploit, it is already possible to do a lot of exploits with state freighters. But that's my 2 cents, as this is your work and code, if you believe that's the best way, I'll rest my case. I just had to try convincing you, once!

I don't think the ship and crew maintenance covers the full cost of extracting a resource. I don't have the code in front of me right now but if I recall correctly, the game subtracts something like 95% of the galactic market price from the resource to account ofr other costs. That assumes most people with contracts are making a 5% profit. Any planet with higher than average price for that commodity should be a planet where you can make a profit, assuming the tax rate is low. The whole free trader free miner system is far from perfect. It was just a one-off thing I wanted to try... like my Bacon Mining Company scenario. Anyway, glad you are playing it. You might be the only one.

Can't resist posting this one. This huge constructor (see the others freighters around) has only an interest of being so oversized because of the Bacon mod. It holds 65.000 cargo units, has 50 thrusters, the armament of a cruiser and redundant systems on ECM, ECCM, etc. Also 8 marine detachments (boarding pods) make sure intruders will have a bad time.

So why it's of interest? Because I got bored of seeing my constructors plant a facility, then move back 2 sectors to a planet with enough resources, rinse and repeat. This ship is tagged as Free Trader, and has enough resources in its hold to build several installations in a row in a distant system. It makes much more sense to me. Is it too powerful/exploitive? well given I play against hard AIs and with self imposed house rules on diplomacy and colonization, I can do that without remorse I believe [:D]

Your mega-constructor is great. Another way to avaoid having to head back to pick up raw materials is to have a state-run freighter supply your constructor. I often send a freighter to a far off constructor with materials and a !note message to remind me once it has been resupplied. Its a little micromanagement but that's the balance for a feature teh AI can't use.

[Pocus]

Thanks for the answers Roger. I don't play a Free Trader game by itself, it is part of my (slowly progressing) campaign. I restrict myself to one FT per colony world and they are used to either procure a missing resource to a colony, or when idle to go on tour (hence the 'Merchantman' concept, i.e. large and armed freighters) to fetch luxury resources from alien worlds. And this part is indeed nice, except I never ever manage to make some profit. When you hit after 8 months travel an alien world and you sell for a price lower than the buying price a resource that is lacking on the world, it just don't feel right.

[RogerBacon]

ORIGINAL: Pocus

Thanks for the answers Roger. I don't play a Free Trader game by itself, it is part of my (slowly progressing) campaign. I restrict myself to one FT per colony world and they are used to either procure a missing resource to a colony, or when idle to go on tour (hence the 'Merchantman' concept, i.e. large and armed freighters) to fetch luxury resources from alien worlds. And this part is indeed nice, except I never ever manage to make some profit. When you hit after 8 months travel an alien world and you sell for a price lower than the buying price a resource that is lacking on the world, it just don't feel right.

Hi Pocus,

It's coming back to me now why I didn't count scarcity as a bigger factor. The market price is based on the closest population center to the entity you are trading with. You are not just limited to trading with planets. You could trade with a mining station or a defensive base. I didn't want someone to buy from a planet and then click on an orbiting defensive base and sell for a profit just because the base has only 50 units of something. Also, scarcity would need to take in to account any goods ordered and in transit to the base, which would be difficult to do. So, to recap, scarcity does play a limited role but only when the planet has the resource shortage text on its infopanel.

[Pocus]

Yes, obviously it can be prone to exploits. It makes sense done this way, baring much more complex appraisals that would eat too much CPU.

Still on subject of free traders and resources, as this is where DW fails to run smoothly for me. How to free up a resource reserved by another empire? (trade ban or war should do that, they won’t anyway manage to get hold on it. Is there a timer of sort cancelling the reserve in this case?). I have some ludicrous cases where I'm starving in Carbon and an empire with I have trade banned has reserved what is approximately 75% of my stockpile on my swamp world. Makes no sense to me.

Also, about FT, when you buy something with them, is the money going back (hopefully yes) to the empire owning the resources bought? Because I will probably deduct (with the editor) the money I give to my FT, as I use them as 'super state freighters' from my empire treasury, seems fairer to me. Now if you can have an optional setting doing just that in your config file, I would not say no, but that's minor, I can do it by hand.

Side remark on the FT sheet, each time you trade something, the columns order is lost.

[RogerBacon]

ORIGINAL: Pocus

Still on subject of free traders and resources, as this is where DW fails to run smoothly for me. How to free up a resource reserved by another empire? (trade ban or war should do that, they won’t anyway manage to get hold on it. Is there a timer of sort cancelling the reserve in this case?). I have some ludicrous cases where I'm starving in Carbon and an empire with I have trade banned has reserved what is approximately 75% of my stockpile on my swamp world. Makes no sense to me.

I don't know if there is an expiration timer but I would suspect not as they have already paid for the resource. They pay when reserving it.

Also, about FT, when you buy something with them, is the money going back (hopefully yes) to the empire owning the resources bought? Because I will probably deduct (with the editor) the money I give to my FT, as I use them as 'super state freighters' from my empire treasury, seems fairer to me. Now if you can have an optional setting doing just that in your config file, I would not say no, but that's minor, I can do it by hand.

Side remark on the FT sheet, each time you trade something, the columns order is lost.

Money in the free trader system works like this. When you buy something from a planet or base the owning empire receives the money you paid. When you sell something the buying empire loses that much money. All money made by the free trader stays with the free trader. If you want to return some of the free trader's profits back to your empire you can use the free trader command again with a negative capitalization amount and that much money will be returned to the free trader's empire.

[Nobody987]

Hi Roger,

would it be possible for you to implement feature where when player tries to upgrade design, instead of always getting "SHIP_NAME MKX" we can choose what suffix will be? It gets pretty annoying when you want to put your designs in roman numerics and you have to do it for each ship for each design.

I am guessing that that suffix is some semi-fixed string that is added when button is clicked, so with that logic, it would be awesome if player can set it in settings file, for example. What are your thoughts on this?

Regards

[Pocus]

Any idea why CST Nostromo 002 (which is a free trader, close to the planet) don't trigger the trading dialog?

https://we.tl/oZSjA9yEic

I had the trade dialog with another ship nearby, and I fail to bring it with this particular ship on any location. I also reset it to freetrader 0, then freetrader 100000, but nothing. Its 3 sister ships work fine btw.

[RogerBacon]

ORIGINAL: Nobody987

Hi Roger,

would it be possible for you to implement feature where when player tries to upgrade design, instead of always getting "SHIP_NAME MKX" we can choose what suffix will be? It gets pretty annoying when you want to put your designs in roman numerics and you have to do it for each ship for each design.

I am guessing that that suffix is some semi-fixed string that is added when button is clicked, so with that logic, it would be awesome if player can set it in settings file, for example. What are your thoughts on this?

Regards

Hi. Unfortunately I don't think I can teach the AI to use roman numbers. Adding 1 to an existing number is easy when its 1,2,3. When you update your design you can just change the name at that time or do you use automated upgrades?

ORIGINAL: Pocus

Any idea why CST Nostromo 002 (which is a free trader, close to the planet) don't trigger the trading dialog?

https://we.tl/oZSjA9yEic

I had the trade dialog with another ship nearby, and I fail to bring it with this particular ship on any location. I also reset it to freetrader 0, then freetrader 100000, but nothing. Its 3 sister ships work fine btw.

Hi Pocus. The issue here is that the planet is building a constructor. That means that its cargo includes the components that will go on the ship and components ar not resources. When the game is iterating through the planet's cargo when it hits a non-resource it gets a null reference exception. I've fixed it and it will be in the next update. I'm not sure why I didn't see this with bases, as they are always building something. Anyway, thanks for the saved game. It helped me find this bug.

[Pocus]

Did you check the FT constructor would work with another body, because I was rather certain it did not work with the planet moon. And I'm also fairly certain I could trade with the planet with the nearby merchantman which is also a FT.

Glad you fixed a bug, but perhaps there is another!

[RogerBacon]

Well, I'd say my steel shortage is a thing of the past.



I'm playing a pirate game and I just conducted a massive raid. I'm glad the booty is automatically teleported to my base. I can't imagine how many freighters it would take to haul that load away.

In other news, I found out that one of my favorite tactics doesn't work as a pirate. Usually my games end before I get resupply ships so I use two state gas miners working together to refuel ships and each other (hence the need for two). However, when I tried this as a pirate it didn't work. The fleet flew to the gas miner, slowed to speed 3, then passed right by without refueling. It turns out that because the gas miners of pirates are listed as "independent" instead of the real pirate empire name, the ships won't refuel. I've changed this and the update will be in the next patch. It won't affect the game unless you manually order ships to refuel from gas miners as I often do.

[Nobody987]

Hi. Unfortunately I don't think I can teach the AI to use roman numbers. Adding 1 to an existing number is easy when its 1,2,3. When you update your design you can just change the name at that time or do you use automated upgrades?

No, I meant only when player is upgrading designs. As you know, whenever you go in design screen and do copy as new or auto upgrade, you get new design named as Ship MK 1 (incremented previous version). Sometimes I would like that all my designs use roman numerals for example, so that designs are named Ship I or Ship Mk I etc.

So I am asking would it be possible to put it in config file, something like use_roman_numeral [yes/no]?

Regards

[AFBTD]

Roger roger...caught it (roger bacon); nice explanations

[Vellarain]

OK, serious question here.

How the hell can anyone run this game with 2000 stars on a 15X15 map?

I have an I7 Skylake, 6 cores running at 3.4 and I am using a solid state hard drive, though that could be the issue. Still, my game CRAWLS if I play at 400 stars on a 6X6, its only worse when I dare to add pirates.

Is there something I am missing? or does all your games end in CPU death like mine?