Open Beta Patch v1.26a (26 march 2024)

Stop here if you are eager to try in advance new patches! Please note that these patches are not compatible with the Steam version of the game.

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zgrssd
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RE: Open Beta Patch v1.02-beta1 (last update 9 june!)

Post by zgrssd »

First of all - can we remove all the airplane stuff from the military council? And solely plant it in the airplane council? It's major league annoying that I'm constantly getting advanced airplane stuff from my military council at the start of a game where I don't start with extra councils, while waiting for all the simple stuff like rpg's, better guns etc. Thank God for jungles keeping my troops alive against enemy tanks...
If it is hard terrain, you really should go for airplanes:
Jungles implies Historical Biomass and thus fuel will be plentyfull (underground Oil reserves)
Jungles also imply a Atmosphere. And a decently dense one at that, given the gravity.
As they fly over, their range might be a dozen turns of movement for the enemy
Meanwhile in mountains, Low Altitude airplanes receive no penalty at all.

Personally I wish more councils would work that:
One basic council can draw the improtant parts and important techs. While there is a specialized one, if you realy want to focus.
But maybe a switch to turn off airplan research/at least push discovery to only happen if there is nothing else left?
Leslac
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RE: Open Beta Patch v1.02-beta1 (last update 9 june!)

Post by Leslac »

ORIGINAL: zgrssd
First of all - can we remove all the airplane stuff from the military council? And solely plant it in the airplane council? It's major league annoying that I'm constantly getting advanced airplane stuff from my military council at the start of a game where I don't start with extra councils, while waiting for all the simple stuff like rpg's, better guns etc. Thank God for jungles keeping my troops alive against enemy tanks...
If it is hard terrain, you really should go for airplanes:
Jungles implies Historical Biomass and thus fuel will be plentyfull (underground Oil reserves)
Jungles also imply a Atmosphere. And a decently dense one at that, given the gravity.
As they fly over, their range might be a dozen turns of movement for the enemy
Meanwhile in mountains, Low Altitude airplanes receive no penalty at all.

Personally I wish more councils would work that:
One basic council can draw the improtant parts and important techs. While there is a specialized one, if you realy want to focus.
But maybe a switch to turn off airplan research/at least push discovery to only happen if there is nothing else left?


Thanks for the reply, but it really has little to do with what I'm asking. I'm at turn 55 and haven't discovered rpg's yet, but all the jet engine, helicopter etc. There's an airplane council, move the research there plz.
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newageofpower
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RE: Open Beta Patch v1.02-beta1 (last update 9 june!)

Post by newageofpower »

ORIGINAL: Leslac

Thanks for the reply, but it really has little to do with what I'm asking. I'm at turn 55 and haven't discovered rpg's yet, but all the jet engine, helicopter etc. There's an airplane council, move the research there plz.
I believe if you open an air force council your normal military research director will no longer discover those techs.
Leslac
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RE: Open Beta Patch v1.02-beta1 (last update 9 june!)

Post by Leslac »

ORIGINAL: newageofpower

ORIGINAL: Leslac

Thanks for the reply, but it really has little to do with what I'm asking. I'm at turn 55 and haven't discovered rpg's yet, but all the jet engine, helicopter etc. There's an airplane council, move the research there plz.
I believe if you open an air force council your normal military research director will no longer discover those techs.

Doesn't change my opinion. Move airplane techs to the airplane council plz. When you're playing extreme difficulty and every move counts, you don't have the luxury of opening other councils just to make sure your military council does what it should do.
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newageofpower
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RE: Open Beta Patch v1.02-beta1 (last update 9 june!)

Post by newageofpower »

Vic, scrapping stratagems seems to increase the spawn weight of that stratagem. Quite annoying to manually delete 10 (sometimes more!) Volunteer Drives every turn.
ORIGINAL: Leslac
Doesn't change my opinion. Move airplane techs to the airplane council plz. When you're playing extreme difficulty and every move counts, you don't have the luxury of opening other councils just to make sure your military council does what it should do.
The only hard part vs AI, even at 'Extreme' difficulty, is surviving early game and stabilizing.
Leslac
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RE: Open Beta Patch v1.02-beta1 (last update 9 june!)

Post by Leslac »

ORIGINAL: newageofpower

Vic, scrapping stratagems seems to increase the spawn weight of that stratagem. Quite annoying to manually delete 10 (sometimes more!) Volunteer Drives every turn.
ORIGINAL: Leslac
Doesn't change my opinion. Move airplane techs to the airplane council plz. When you're playing extreme difficulty and every move counts, you don't have the luxury of opening other councils just to make sure your military council does what it should do.
The only hard part vs AI, even at 'Extreme' difficulty, is surviving early game and stabilizing.

The early part is exactly the problem here. Without the proper infantry equipment, I have to defend in jungles in order to keep the superior enemy back. In another game of all desert, the AI quickly outpaced me technologically and outmaneuvered me with tanks etc. In this game I can outmaneuver them in the jungles, surround and destroy them, but it's slow going, all without stuff like rpg's and such. Because my military council has discovered all the aircraft stuff first... It's simply set me way back. This shouldn't be the case when there's an airplane council that should be focused on such stuff - why even have it in the first place?

Also there are predators with hard armor, poison and laser-like attacks all over the place. Great fun and real tough!
zgrssd
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RE: Open Beta Patch v1.02-beta1 (last update 9 june!)

Post by zgrssd »

ORIGINAL: newageofpower

ORIGINAL: Leslac

Thanks for the reply, but it really has little to do with what I'm asking. I'm at turn 55 and haven't discovered rpg's yet, but all the jet engine, helicopter etc. There's an airplane council, move the research there plz.
I believe if you open an air force council your normal military research director will no longer discover those techs.
That is how I understand it too.

ORIGINAL: Leslac
ORIGINAL: newageofpower

ORIGINAL: Leslac

Thanks for the reply, but it really has little to do with what I'm asking. I'm at turn 55 and haven't discovered rpg's yet, but all the jet engine, helicopter etc. There's an airplane council, move the research there plz.
I believe if you open an air force council your normal military research director will no longer discover those techs.

Doesn't change my opinion. Move airplane techs to the airplane council plz. When you're playing extreme difficulty and every move counts, you don't have the luxury of opening other councils just to make sure your military council does what it should do.
And my opinion is that forcing everyone to create another council that early for minimal airforce is a stupid idea!
ORIGINAL: Leslac
ORIGINAL: newageofpower

Vic, scrapping stratagems seems to increase the spawn weight of that stratagem. Quite annoying to manually delete 10 (sometimes more!) Volunteer Drives every turn.
ORIGINAL: Leslac
Doesn't change my opinion. Move airplane techs to the airplane council plz. When you're playing extreme difficulty and every move counts, you don't have the luxury of opening other councils just to make sure your military council does what it should do.
The only hard part vs AI, even at 'Extreme' difficulty, is surviving early game and stabilizing.

The early part is exactly the problem here. Without the proper infantry equipment, I have to defend in jungles in order to keep the superior enemy back.
Then start on technlevel 4, where you got a AT gun and RPG researched and a model for either one ready at game start.
Leslac
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RE: Open Beta Patch v1.02-beta1 (last update 9 june!)

Post by Leslac »

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

And my opinion is that forcing everyone to create another council that early for minimal airforce is a stupid idea!

Then start on technlevel 4, where you got a AT gun and RPG researched and a model for either one ready at game start.


You already have a minimal airforce with the superlight aircraft. If you want a real airforce, it's a safe bet to make the airforce council. Also why would I want to make the game easier to begin with? The fun is when it's hard. The problem is when the game is actively preventing me from doing something because of randomness.

But I'll suggest a compromise - move rocket engine and helicopter + everything beyond this in tech to the airforce council, then people can still get the early flying stuff from the military council. Better?


Oh and btw. - when I wrote rpg's I meant bazooka, which is the first level of AT tech. Just got it, combat armour and high speed mgs at turn 60+ because of military council researching high level airplane stuff first. Now that's stupid!
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BlueTemplar
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RE: Open Beta Patch v1.02-beta1 (last update 9 june!)

Post by BlueTemplar »

Aren't there planets where (turbo)propeller/helicopter/(jet?) engines are pretty much useless ?

My first game I ended up on a 0.2g, 20% atmospheric density planet, and so I didn't even bother researching anything else than rocket engines... was I wrong ?
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jimwinsor
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RE: Open Beta Patch v1.02-beta1 (last update 9 june!)

Post by jimwinsor »

I think the Air development system as is is fine.

Whenever you create a new cabinet position, your BPs get divided, again, evenly at first and then in proportion to any new budget settings you might make (which in itself can be a politically damaging maneuver). So, forcing you to create a cabinet minister just to research basic aircraft tech is a bit too punishing, IMO.

The system as is encourages you to create the Air ministry late game, when you are swimming in BPs, where dividing your BP allocation again actually helps deal with the efficiency drop of allocating more than 100 BPs to a single task.

This has parallels to real life. The US, for example, didn't create the United States Air Force until 1947. By this time, two world wars were fought, and aircraft development went from flimsy ultralight biplanes to early jet aircraft, 4-engine heavy prop bombers, very early helicopters, etc.
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redrum68
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RE: Open Beta Patch v1.02-beta1 (last update 9 june!)

Post by redrum68 »

I do agree that having all the air techs researchable by military council probably isn't ideal early game. This causes a lot of randomness in tech discovery early game where if you get unlucky and get a bunch of the air techs instead of say combat armor or side skirts, it can really slow you down. Simple solution might just be an option on your military council on whether to allow discovery of air techs or even just add a separate priority slider for air tech discovery in the military council.
Leslac
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RE: Open Beta Patch v1.02-beta1 (last update 9 june!)

Post by Leslac »

ORIGINAL: jimwinsor

I think the Air development system as is is fine.

Whenever you create a new cabinet position, your BPs get divided, again, evenly at first and then in proportion to any new budget settings you might make (which in itself can be a politically damaging maneuver). So, forcing you to create a cabinet minister just to research basic aircraft tech is a bit too punishing, IMO.

The system as is encourages you to create the Air ministry late game, when you are swimming in BPs, where dividing your BP allocation again actually helps deal with the efficiency drop of allocating more than 100 BPs to a single task.

This has parallels to real life. The US, for example, didn't create the United States Air Force until 1947. By this time, two world wars were fought, and aircraft development went from flimsy ultralight biplanes to early jet aircraft, 4-engine heavy prop bombers, very early helicopters, etc.

It's a good point you make there. However, as I suggested moving the advanced aircraft tech (helicopter and rocket engines + beyond) to the airforce council, this fits with what you're speaking of.

Also the WW1 European military powers made their own airforces with R&D departments around 1916. The US got access to a lot of these inventions once they joined the war, so historically it's quite normal to start a specialized R&D dept once the tech is discovered by "amateurs" like the Wright Brothers etc.

And you're ignoring the fact that you can suddenly be pushed back dozens of turns if your military R&D decides to focus on rocket engines, helicopters and such to begin with.

It's a litteral killer of early game situations.

ORIGINAL: redrum68

I do agree that having all the air techs researchable by military council probably isn't ideal early game. This causes a lot of randomness in tech discovery early game where if you get unlucky and get a bunch of the air techs instead of say combat armor or side skirts, it can really slow you down. Simple solution might just be an option on your military council on whether to allow discovery of air techs or even just add a separate priority slider for air tech discovery in the military council.


This works for me. Honestly it should be an option to begin with - like have discovery focus on infantry, armor or air. And then have a lesser chance of discovering something unrelated instead.



ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar

Aren't there planets where (turbo)propeller/helicopter/(jet?) engines are pretty much useless ?

My first game I ended up on a 0.2g, 20% atmospheric density planet, and so I didn't even bother researching anything else than rocket engines... was I wrong ?


One of the "help" screens, last of the long list of reports - I believe it's one of the planetary condition reports. Tell you which types of airplanes work best.
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BlueTemplar
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RE: Open Beta Patch v1.02-beta1 (last update 9 june!)

Post by BlueTemplar »

Well yes, going in random planet, this is the only way to know. But my question was how much worse the alternatives to rocket planes would ACTUALLY be.

----

Rocket Engine is just one tech. You could say the same thing about military wasting their time on discovering Propeller instead of Basic Military techs. And Turboprop and Helicopter require Propeller.

So it looks like you have to pick between researching Propeller right away and potentially wasting your BP on discovering Turboprop/Helicopter... or waiting until you discovered those important Chemistry/Engineering Military techs to research Propeller. Is it a big issue ?
zgrssd
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RE: Open Beta Patch v1.02-beta1 (last update 9 june!)

Post by zgrssd »

ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar

Aren't there planets where (turbo)propeller/helicopter/(jet?) engines are pretty much useless ?

My first game I ended up on a 0.2g, 20% atmospheric density planet, and so I didn't even bother researching anything else than rocket engines... was I wrong ?
I would say at 20% Atmospheric density (200 mBar), you should expect 20% lift.
Given a 0.20g gravity, you would need 20% Lift.
So on the planet you gave, I would expect airplanes to be about as feasible as on earth.
zgrssd
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RE: Open Beta Patch v1.02-beta1 (last update 9 june!)

Post by zgrssd »

ORIGINAL: redrum68

I do agree that having all the air techs researchable by military council probably isn't ideal early game. This causes a lot of randomness in tech discovery early game where if you get unlucky and get a bunch of the air techs instead of say combat armor or side skirts, it can really slow you down. Simple solution might just be an option on your military council on whether to allow discovery of air techs or even just add a separate priority slider for air tech discovery in the military council.
Somebody sugested that maybe we should be able to buy such critical tech via a Event. But crafted Stratagems might also work for that idea:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4949499
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BlueTemplar
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RE: Open Beta Patch v1.02-beta1 (last update 9 june!)

Post by BlueTemplar »

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar

Aren't there planets where (turbo)propeller/helicopter/(jet?) engines are pretty much useless ?

My first game I ended up on a 0.2g, 20% atmospheric density planet, and so I didn't even bother researching anything else than rocket engines... was I wrong ?
I would say at 20% Atmospheric density (200 mBar), you should expect 20% lift.
Given a 0.20g gravity, you would need 20% Lift.
So on the planet you gave, I would expect airplanes to be about as feasible as on earth.
That simple, huh ?

Though checking it, lift is indeed proportional to air density ( IIRC ~ pressure ).

The game DID recommend Rocket rather than "anything goes"...

But then I also see that lift is roughly proportional to projected wing area, and in practice, bigger wings only seemed to hinder my designs.

But this is probably because drag is proportional to squared velocity for turbulent airflow... and with the kind of engine power and top speeds that my rocket"plane" models got, I expect the airflow to be very turbulent indeed !
(The transition between laminar airflow where drag is directly proportional to velocity and turbulent airflow is characterized by the Reynolds number, which is proportional to fluid density, velocity and "lack of aerodynamism", and is inversely proportional to fluid viscosity.)

Which makes me wonder, since air density decreases (IIRC) exponentially with altitude (but gravity not significantly, unless on an asteroid ?), does the game take into account the same exponential loss of wing efficiency for lift for high altitude aircraft (EDIT : and an exponential increase in efficiency of high altitude rocket"planes") ?
eddieballgame
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RE: Open Beta Patch v1.02-beta1 (last update 9 june!)

Post by eddieballgame »

Well, all of a sudden my 'win 7' laptop is giving me this info per beta 1.07.05.

Trojan:Win32/Prowloc.A!cl
Detected by Microsoft Defender Antivirus
Soar_Slitherine
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RE: Open Beta Patch v1.02-beta1 (last update 9 june!)

Post by Soar_Slitherine »

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

I would say at 20% Atmospheric density (200 mBar), you should expect 20% lift.
Given a 0.20g gravity, you would need 20% Lift.
So on the planet you gave, I would expect airplanes to be about as feasible as on earth.

According to this document by Vic, aircraft with non-rocket engines actually lose a lot of efficiency under very low air pressure, even if gravity is decreased by a similar ratio. It's not merely a matter of lift, most aircraft engines require air for combustion as well.
ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar
Which makes me wonder, since air density decreases (IIRC) exponentially with altitude (but gravity not significantly, unless on an asteroid ?), does the game take into account the same exponential loss of wing efficiency for lift for high altitude aircraft (EDIT : and an exponential increase in efficiency of high altitude rocket"planes") ?
Aircraft in the game perform the same regardless of altitude, it only affects how effective ground-to-air fire is against them. It is a bit simplified compared to real life, but I would expect that the aircraft fly to their mission area at whatever altitude is optimal and then assume the altitude appropriate for how they are designed to accomplish the mission.
zgrssd
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RE: Open Beta Patch v1.02-beta1 (last update 9 june!)

Post by zgrssd »

ORIGINAL: eddieballgame

Well, all of a sudden my 'win 7' laptop is giving me this info per beta 1.07.05.

Trojan:Win32/Prowloc.A!cl
Detected by Microsoft Defender Antivirus
I think someone else had a similar issue.
90% it is a overly agressiv Heuristic or a similar bug. Usually there is a way to report a file as "potential false alarm", so they verify and fix that part.

Of course I have no idea how much Updates the Microsoft Defender on a Windows 7 still receives.
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BlueTemplar
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RE: Open Beta Patch v1.02-beta1 (last update 9 june!)

Post by BlueTemplar »

ORIGINAL: Soar_Slitherine

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

I would say at 20% Atmospheric density (200 mBar), you should expect 20% lift.
Given a 0.20g gravity, you would need 20% Lift.
So on the planet you gave, I would expect airplanes to be about as feasible as on earth.

According to this document by Vic, aircraft with non-rocket engines actually lose a lot of efficiency under very low air pressure, even if gravity is decreased by a similar ratio. It's not merely a matter of lift, most aircraft engines require air for combustion as well.
Funny, I was just thinking about that : both internal and external combustion engines need oxidizer to work.
Most Earth vehicles use the 20% oxygen air content for that.
But this assumes the same air composition as on Earth - meanwhile on "my" planet, there's only 0.24 % oxygen ! (At 1/5 Earth air pressure, to boot.) (No wonder, since on Earth almost all of oxygen comes from life, while "my" planet seems almost devoid of it... except a few spiders. Actually, they probably use the 3.52% of Sulfur Dioxide as oxidizer, but I doubt that my vehicles can ! EDIT : Also some kinds of nasty micro-organisms with a Level 4 bio-hazard ?)

So, it looks like that almost NONE of my oil-using vehicles (or even buildings, like the Degraded Liquid Energy Mini-Reactor or Conventional Power Plants) should be even able to work !
(Rockets being an exception - IRL AFAIK they are so fuel-hungry (or required to operate on low-nil air densities) that they tend to carry their own oxidizer with them !)
ORIGINAL: Soar_Slitherine
ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar
Which makes me wonder, since air density decreases (IIRC) exponentially with altitude (but gravity not significantly, unless on an asteroid ?), does the game take into account the same exponential loss of wing efficiency for lift for high altitude aircraft (EDIT : and an exponential increase in efficiency of high altitude rocket"planes") ?
Aircraft in the game perform the same regardless of altitude, it only affects how effective ground-to-air fire is against them. It is a bit simplified compared to real life, but I would expect that the aircraft fly to their mission area at whatever altitude is optimal and then assume the altitude appropriate for how they are designed to accomplish the mission.
Hmm, but how would a propeller/helicopter aircraft even be able to *get* to high altitude ?
And how would this make sense for high-altitude transporters ?
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