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Latest Threads
2024-03-16 Celarious' Fil...
Forum: Updates
Last Post: Haxus
03-17-2024, 02:40 PM
» Replies: 6
» Views: 180
Possible typo in Relic st...
Forum: Bug Reports
Last Post: Celarious
03-17-2024, 10:13 AM
» Replies: 0
» Views: 26
2024-03-14 Custom Spacecr...
Forum: Updates
Last Post: Haxus
03-16-2024, 12:47 AM
» Replies: 5
» Views: 214
2024-02-22 Major Fail whe...
Forum: Updates
Last Post: Deantwo
03-15-2024, 10:57 PM
» Replies: 51
» Views: 1,290
Airplane Saga
Forum: Cantina
Last Post: Haxus
03-14-2024, 10:54 PM
» Replies: 7
» Views: 273
2024-03-07 Memory Usage, ...
Forum: Updates
Last Post: Haxus
03-14-2024, 10:21 PM
» Replies: 12
» Views: 267
SpaceCraft industries
Forum: Arena of Ideas
Last Post: Deantwo
03-12-2024, 09:08 PM
» Replies: 1
» Views: 43
Vegimite Well
Forum: Bug Reports
Last Post: ZombieOverlord9
03-10-2024, 08:18 PM
» Replies: 2
» Views: 61
Option to specify the dis...
Forum: Arena of Ideas
Last Post: GaelicVigil
03-09-2024, 11:28 PM
» Replies: 0
» Views: 63
32 bit build
Forum: Updates
Last Post: AnrDaemon
03-08-2024, 02:56 PM
» Replies: 4
» Views: 115

 
  Possible typo in Relic storyline
Posted by: Celarious - 03-17-2024, 10:13 AM - Forum: Bug Reports - No Replies

I notice Dr. Millton is spelled Millton in the Control Center story description, but his name is Dr. Millford in the story dialogue, see here
[Image: lGiaydk.png]
[Image: ControlCenterDialogue.png]

And then, in the next story, Particle Harvester, he's called Millford in the description again

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  2024-03-16 Celarious' File, Decay Systems, Save Game, Terrain Option, City Lights
Posted by: Haxus - 03-17-2024, 12:23 AM - Forum: Updates - Replies (6)

Celarious' Game File
Celarious allowed me to download a large saved game file, in excess of 4gB. He was curious about why the file was so large. That file flushed out some bugs.

The original file is used more or less like this:

  • 5mB of game data, empires, and species.
  • 4gB of building blueprints, 329 of them.
  • 300mB of spacecraft blueprints, 32 of them. Nice spaceships!
  • 30mB of Universe and its atoms.

A big surprise was watching memory usage. As soon as QFile::open is called on the file, 8gB of memory gets consumed. That is without reading any data from the file. The memory does not appear to be released after I close the file. I am continuing to research this feature. Total memory usage only gained 1gB after that, for a final total of 11gB virtual and 8gB resident.

Another surprise was the 2,626 sectors, 52,526 solar systems, and 2,383 ringworld arc sections. This led to some improvements to the solar system decay logic, which reduced these numbers to 606 sectors, 13,615 solar systems, and 28 ringworld arc sections.

A small number of obsolete blueprints were deleted automatically.

Some of the decay logic happens in stages. After running the game a few times, the save game file lost about 110mB of size.

Decay Solar Systems
A ringworld prevents the solar system contents from decaying.

This was improved to allow ringworld solar systems to decay when there are no dependencies.

Save Large Game to File Fails
Saving the Current Game to a file fails when the game data is larger than 2gB.

The code to save a game to a single file does about the same thing as zipping the two files together into one. My code to do this is very simplistic, simply loading the entire file into a QByteArray at once. Well a QByteArray is limited to 2gB in size.

This function is not important enough to do the work necessary to overcome this limitation.

Instead a message is presented now, when the file size is too large. The message advises the user to simply zip the files, and it reports the full path to the two files that are needed.

Save Game to File Fails
Saving any game to a file, other than the Current Game, does absolutely nothing.

Fixed file path error.

Save Customizations to Gear
Deantwo suggested that the spacecraft customizations be stored into the avatar's gear, rather than to a disk file.

This was such a good idea that I dug into it right away. It is done.

Terrain Improvement Option
Improvements were made to terrain generation. The changes do not affect worlds that have already been created. Can this be done?

A message now appears when an old version game file is loaded. The message box offers to fix the terrain. After the game is saved, the message does not appear again.

City Lights
Cities do not look like cities at night. There isn't enough light. They should glow more.

Added blobs of light to buildings at night, if they have power.

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  2024-03-14 Custom Spacecraft, Decal Lighting, Mfg Options, Autopark, Warp Field
Posted by: Haxus - 03-14-2024, 10:12 PM - Forum: Updates - Replies (5)

Custom Spacecraft Manufacture
The ability to customize a spacecraft blueprint at the time of manufacture has been requested quite a lot, in one form or another.

Done. This was a ton of work but I think you will like the result. You can replace modules but you cannot add or remove them. You can also adjust the volume assigned to each subsystem. You can even save/load your customizations.

Customizations can be applied when scheduling regular production at a spacecraft factory, when buying a company spacecraft, and when commissioning a fleet spacecraft.

Some modules can be replaced with empty modules, as a placeholder. That does not reduce the number of crew berths so the ship will have extra crew. Empty modules can be upgraded later, when appropriate modules are available.

Decal Lighting
Decals should be lit according to their group. Currently they are always lit as if they are outside the hull.

Done.

Targoss Says Mint Money with Metal
Targoss tells you to build a bank to mint money using metal. That won't work.

Changed the script slightly.

Manufacture Options Idle, Make, and Every
When a mine is placed, add a process to mine everything that is there.

To address this suggestion I changed the Make checkbox on the Construction window into a combo box with three options.

  • Idle - Building will not make anything.
  • Make - Building will devote as many shops as possible to making the commodity in the combo box. Mines select a resource at their site.
  • Every - Building will devote one process to each thing it makes, starting with the commodity in the combo box, in the order of things in the combo box. Farms skip silage and irrigation processes. Mines devote as many shops as possible to each resource at its site, with stone always being last in the list.

Rocket Autopark
I landed a rocket next to the aircraft factory and it did not autopark. In fact, no vehicles autopark themselves in outdoor parking spots.

Done. Previously vehicles made no attempt to park themselves in outdoor parking spots.

Add Shop to Oil Donkey
The default oil donkey blueprint takes up a lot of land for only one shop. Can this be improved?

There is now an Oil Donkey 3 blueprint that has three shops.

Flat Terrain
I made some tweaks in a previous update to eliminate the weird blobby shorelines that appear on worlds with generally flat terrain. In testing, I still got a homeworld with these ugly shorelines everywhere.

I made some further tweaks to the terrain parameters. This change will not affect existing worlds.

Warp Field Gone
My ship went warp speed and there was no warp field effect around the ship.

Fixed a clipping bug that I introduced in the previous update.

Office Assignment Bug
I assigned a government office to a citizen. The tree control did not update to show the change. This was confusing because when I redisplayed the window it was correct.

Fixed.

Native File Dialogs
Some file dialogs were not observing the setting for using native file dialogs or not.

Fixed.

Window 32 Bit Build
This update includes an updated 32 bit build for Windows. I couldn't stand the thought of the final 32 bit build having the warp field bug. Ugh.

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  SpaceCraft industries
Posted by: ZombieOverlord9 - 03-11-2024, 07:42 PM - Forum: Arena of Ideas - Replies (1)

Just had an idea which im not sure has been suggested  .

It would be interesting if we could not only harvest raw materials with harvesters aboard our ships, but then have terminals and subsystems onboard to process the raw into refined goods.

Hear me out. This would be a subsystem that would require space allocating during the design phase like any weapon system.

Place a terminal for example a smelter (Ore->Metal), allocate space in designer E.G 1000m2 required per production line. (Make them space hungry as this is more realistic) when the design is manufactured the terminal would allow the player access to the production screen of that industry much like in a city. But the production would use the inventory of the ship.

This could be implemented with the other industries. Allowing players to build seed ships that could harvest the resources and build components from orbit allowing for greater freedom and role playing. (Become a nomad with no fixed planet, exploring and surveying the great expanse repairing and refueling the ship and its subsystems as they wear.)

Feel like this would be obvious but this clearly would be something for the distant future of the game, there are more pressing bugs and fixes that are required and are be patched.

What do you spacefarers think of the idea.

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  Vegimite Well
Posted by: ZombieOverlord9 - 03-10-2024, 06:08 PM - Forum: Bug Reports - Replies (2)

A funny bug I just found.

If a well was producing Oil and gas before the latest patch it will now be producing Oil and Vegemite.

Either this is a bug or i've got huge natural reserves of Vegemite below the surface of my planets haha.
   

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  Option to specify the distance of empires from each another
Posted by: GaelicVigil - 03-09-2024, 11:28 PM - Forum: Arena of Ideas - No Replies

I would like to see the option added to new game creation where you could choose a minimum and/or maximum range from another pre-existing empire's capitol.  So, for example, you might set a range of 3 to 9 parsecs away from another save file's capitol world.  The game would then choose a random starting system that contains all the necessary resources for space travel within that range.

I think this would be a relatively simple way to allow asynchronous multiplayer games on a household basis.  Of course, you wouldn't have real time interaction, but at least you could attack each other and/or cooperate together.  It would give a great incentive to continue exploring the universe, knowing another player is lurking somewhere nearby to discover.  As it stands now, the game hits a dead-end once you've gotten warp drive and there is no more reason to keep progressing.

Of course this wouldn't replace a future true multiplayer feature, but at least give the players the option of making things more interesting in the short term.

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  2024-03-07 Memory Usage, Item Models, Little Things, Bug Fixes
Posted by: Haxus - 03-08-2024, 12:15 AM - Forum: Updates - Replies (12)

Memory Usage
I did an analysis of the memory used by the program to determine if there was any significant leakage or overuse.

All the big memory consumers in the game were accounted for. There were a few surprises. 

It surprised me that initializing the OpenAL sound system used up 500MB of memory. That was simply initializing the system, without loading any of my own sound files.

It also surprised me that each atom manager used 100MB of memory. They contain very few variables and a couple of thread objects. I presume the thread objects were responsible for the overhead. You can control the number of these. The default on my system was 10, which used up 1GB of memory.

I loaded a game that has several cities in multiple solar systems, with spacecraft flying around harvesting things. This game ran all night long. In the morning the overall memory usage was not significantly higher than when I went to bed. I do not believe there is a memory leak, at least not a large one.

As a game develops, memory usage soon approaches 4GB resident, with that much or more in virtual memory. A 32 bit computer can only address up to 4GB of memory so I decided not to bother building a 32 bit version of the game after the update today. Today's update will be the last 32 bit build unless someone speaks up.

Item Models
A few commodity items did not have models to represent them in the game. Some items needed an update to their model.

These things now have new or updated 3D models.

  • Adamantine
  • Adamantite
  • Blueprints
  • Borexino Precipitate
  • Certificate for Spacecraft Title
  • Computer
  • Dynamite
  • Gold
  • Gold Ore
  • Gold Ring
  • Ice Cream
  • Microscope
  • Myrasplicer
  • Nanopath Calibrator
  • Nuclear Fuel Rod
  • Plutonium
  • Red, Green and Blue Binders
  • Storage Crystal
  • Tesloid Dissipator
  • Thumb Drive

Dynamite Fuse
It would be fun if the dynamite looked lit.

Dynamite fuse now has a burning sprite when lit and when carried as your current item. It also emits light.

Smoke in Dynamite Crater Not Toxic
I created a few craters with dynamite. The smoke inside was not toxic.

Fixed an altitude bug that affected craters that were some distance above sea level.

Building Under Construction Bug
Airport was under construction. I could open the front door and walk inside.

Fixed. Building controls no longer respond until the building construction is completed.

Building Page Update Bug
Current item selection is lost on the Building page when it updates anything.

Fixed.

Store Page Update Bug
Store page loses current item selection if the item list updates.

Fixed.

Vegemite
Vegemite should be added as a commodity.

Done. I'm afraid the process for making it isn't very accurate as we do not have brewer's yeast as a commodity. I substituted beer since that at least requires a brewer.

Sensor Bug
The officer decided to attack an asteroid far out in deep space. I could not see it on the sensor screen. How did he know it was there?

The ship I was aboard had a huge sensor range. Fixed sensor station maximum range to accommodate sensor range of the ship.

Sensor Lock On Bug
Sensor lock on reticle is red when locked onto an asteroid. When I switch to the command station the reticle turns blue and loses its target.

Fixed.

Asteroid Dust
Approaching an asteroid, the dust cloud sprites are small until I get close then they fill the area like they are supposed to.

Fixed.

Asteroid Approach
Crew does a really bad job of approaching an asteroid when told to attack. They fall in behind it and pace it too far away to fire at it.

Fixed.

Pilot Stop Bug
Pilot used to just coast ahead when mission was stopped. Now he turns the ship. This is annoying. I want to shoot the pilot.

Fixed.

Aquatic Plant Fade
Aquatic plants should not fade into view like surface plants. The alpha blend doesn't work with the water and it makes a sudden black spot instead. That is distracting.

Fixed.

Door Button Icon
When I look at a door on a ship or building an on-screen button appears to operate the door. It would be nice if the icon on the button matched the type of door I am looking at.

Done.

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  32 bit build
Posted by: Haxus - 03-05-2024, 12:34 AM - Forum: Updates - Replies (4)

Does anyone use the 32 bit build?

I may stop building a 32 bit version unless someone actually uses it.

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  Crash on entering new system
Posted by: Etgfrog - 03-02-2024, 01:59 PM - Forum: Bug Reports - No Replies

I've stumbled my way up to the point that I need resources from another star system. The issue is trying to go to another star system, either by deadheading or by wormholes causes everything to freeze up. I've tried all 3 different wormholes that was in the system I started in, I tried traveling directly to another one, all had the same result, a single frame of being in the new system and everything becomes non-responsive.

The save file is right before using a wormhole drive into a new system.
Save file link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d7QtlXA...drive_link

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  2024-02-29 Helicopter Bugs, Lighting Bugs, Prone Movement, Falling Damage
Posted by: Haxus - 02-29-2024, 09:12 PM - Forum: Updates - Replies (27)

Helicopter Too Feeble
Helicopter is too feeble to taxi up the ramp on Gulliver.

Fixed a bug that determined the air pressure in a room, due to the ramp room being an outside room. The helicopter was unable to move because it was reading zero air pressure in its environment.

Helicopter Stuck in Ceiling
Helicopter in vehicle bay on Gulliver gets stuck in the ceiling quite easily. Just take off.

Fixed.

Prone Movement Buggy
Moving on a hill while prone is quite an experience. Sometimes you get dragged uncontrollably around the terrain.

Fixed.

Falling Damage
Creatures, vehicles and spacecraft are not damaged by crashing into terrain. I can fall from orbit and land unhurt on the terrain.

Falling damage was disabled for a long time due to the previous prone movement bug. That bug invariably ended up killing you due to falling damage.

This is reported as "collision with terrain" in messages that report damage.

Due to the deadly nature of this change, a setting was added to enable/disable falling damage. It can be found on the Program page of the Settings window.

Lighting on Gulliver Ramp
Lighting of the helicopter is incorrect on the vehicle ramp on Gulliver. It is pitch black.

Fixed.

Toxic Smoke
When real bombs explode, there is a high concentration of carbon monoxide in the crater. Could the smoke in bomb craters be toxic in the game?

Smoke in bomb craters is now toxic. It causes suffocation damage, not poisoning.

Smoke from fissures is also toxic.

Smoke from volcanoes is not toxic.

New Avatar Bug
I started several new avatars that never seemed to enter the game.

Changed the algorithm for finding a homeworld. The requirement for a neighboring ringworld became more stringent, causing the old algorithm to spend a lot of time searching, sometimes with no success.

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