Yarlen Yarlen

Diplomacy v1.2 Preview

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Diplomacy v1.2 Preview

from Sins Forums

Happy 2011 to all the Sins players out there! :)   It's been quiet on the Sins' front for a while now due to other business, but as I promised late last year, we're working on a new Diplomacy update for everyone.  The update will be released in beta first due to a number of changes we're making in the game, probably in the next two weeks.  Once we're happy that everything is working as expected, we'll release a final version for everyone.

So what's going to be in the update?

  • Balance changes:  We're making a number of gameplay balance tweaks based on player feedback. These will include changes to both ships and tech tree items.
  • Various bug fixes from reported issues.
  • New Pirate System:  This is a pretty big one, so I'll detail it a bit more below.
  • Memory optimizations:  This is one of the key reasons for starting this update as a beta.  We'll be tweaking the game's memory use for greater performance.

Currently the Pirates can either be non-factors or incredibly nasty early on given how their upgrade system works and how their fleets are composed. If you get a streak of bad luck, you end up with Pirates that have an insane power curve that makes the game very unfun, very quickly. To fix this, we're switching the Pirates to a series of fixed fleet compositions and upgrade paths.  What this means is that early on, if you get tagged with a Pirate raid from bounty, you'll find them annoying but easy to deal with.  As the game progresses, the Pirates abilities and toughness will scale over time based on the amount of credits they collect from missions, bounty, their planet, etc.  The Pirates will no longer simply scale in power, either!  We're giving them unlockable special abilities that will give them an edge in late game situations. ;)   On the flip side, we don't want situations where in the late game, a player can send a massive Pirate fleet at another player by simply dropping 100 total credits on bounty.  So we're adding in a new system that will scale back Pirate raids levels if the bounty isn't high enough to warrant a big deployment.

Basically, the Pirate bounty system will be a bludgeon, whereas giving the Pirates missions via Diplomacy will be a scalpel. ;)

328,389 views 188 replies
Reply #76 from Sins Forums Top

One thing that would make the AI sooooo much better would be simply to disallow AI carrier cruisers from following blindly the rest of the fleet into starbase weapons range.  That is all it would take for the "hide behind starbase" strat to become much harder. 

Reply #77 from Sins Forums Top

Hmm, I don't disagree and we'll investigate it. I think that stuff is tied into the fleet dynamics, however, which may complicate matters.

CursorFX - Customize your Windows cursor
Reply #78 from Sins Forums Top

Just talked to the guys about this and it would not be easy to accomplish. We'll have to pass on it for now.

Reply #79 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Yarlen, reply 78
Just talked to the guys about this and it would not be easy to accomplish. We'll have to pass on it for now.
HATE. O:)

 

:fox:

Reply #80 from Sins Forums Top

teehee so i have a question will i stillbe able to use modd vor 1.10 or no

Reply #81 from Sins Forums Top

Yarlen, can you at least allow modders the ability to modify AI ourselves then? My buddies tell me that it is hardcoded and we don't have access to it???

Reply #82 from Sins Forums Top

We will greatly appreciate any new input into the game. Sins still have a ton of untapped potential, wasted by imbalances and optimisation issues. It warms the heart to see you still care :)

Reply #83 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Yarlen, reply 78
Just talked to the guys about this and it would not be easy to accomplish. We'll have to pass on it for now.

Ok... What about the Vasari AI starbase construction logic. The Colonizer/Starbase Constructor AI seems to have issues building starbases while the dedicated TEC/Advent AI seem to get star bases up much quicker.

Reply #84 from Sins Forums Top

K here a good question what about the fastest speed that is talked about in the impulse video for sins?

They said theirs a fastest speed after faster.

knowing there isn't that is false advertisement  lol. faster is getting to slow

Is it coming with this patch?or later patch?

Reply #85 from Sins Forums Top

I haven't seen speed that comes after faster but if it was it would be really hard to manage all aspects of battle (microing). So I would say faster is fast enough.

 

Reply #86 from Sins Forums Top

The Colonizer/Starbase Constructor AI seems to have issues building starbases while the dedicated TEC/Advent AI seem to get star bases up much quicker.

The reason for that is budgeting.  The AI will often spend its money on higher priority things and leave its constructor sitting in limbo waiting for funds to build the starbase.  Because the Vasari starbase requires more money to deploy, this means the migrator is often waiting for longer. 

I haven't seen speed that comes after faster but if it was it would be really hard to manage all aspects of battle (microing). So I would say faster is fast enough.

Personally, I think we've hit the limit of increasing the game's pace through these sliders.  If we still want to make it faster, the best way would be a new slider that increases the game update rate (similar to the +/- option in singleplayer) by factors of 50%.

Actually, the game would play very similarly to Starcraft if you were hammering away at 4x speed.

Reply #87 from Sins Forums Top

If we still want to make it faster, the best way would be a new slider that increases the game update rate (similar to the +/- option in singleplayer) by factors of 50%.

Actually, the game would play very similarly to Starcraft if you were hammering away at 4x speed.
Processor bottleneck. Much lag on any game that gets to late-game.

 

:fox:

Reply #88 from Sins Forums Top

How long now until the release?

Reply #89 from Sins Forums Top

Hi guys, nice to see Sins is still receiving attention and being improved, this is awesome.

Looking forward to getting some decent amount of free time to spend with a new and improved old favorite!

Couple of questions,

1) Any chance this is on the cards; Quoting "Like the Whirlwind"

This won't make it into Diplomacy, but is certainly something we'll look into for future releases. How do the modders feel about specifying the parameters for the cone equation to determine a firing arc for each weapon? Point of origin, height of cone (weapon range), angle from center, etc.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Cone.html


2) Will there be a new Dev exe. for the modders.

P.S any chance we could get a "convertdata xsi" compatible with newer versions of SoftImage xsi files, if it is possible. I know the code was released but no one seems to have made one yet and I'm not so good with code.

Cheers all. :beer:

Reply #90 from Sins Forums Top

Processor bottleneck. Much lag on any game that gets to late-game.

x1.5 or x2 should be manageable, though.

Reply #91 from Sins Forums Top

Is there any chance that the patch could also include a fix to eliminate the mesh error problem that Trinity purchasers experience when they try to play online?

Last night a guy tried to join a 4v4 several times and those of us who were in the game chat channel (where you can chat while waiting for your game to fill) felt badly for him and didn't have any way to reach out to him.  (After you get the mesh error, you are sent to a blank channel where no one can find you, and not the Lobby channel.)  It was kind of sad.  I like to tell people how they can fix the problem by directing them to the sticky thread in the Technical forum, but sometimes you just can't find the person in the chat Lobby.

Reply #92 from Sins Forums Top

You guys gonna fix the empire tree from jumping around so you can scroll and select things properly in battles?

Reply #93 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting DirtySanchezz, reply 91
Is there any chance that the patch could also include a fix to eliminate the mesh error problem that Trinity purchasers experience when they try to play online?

 

THIS is the primary reason multiplayer is so empty.

this absolutely MUST be fixed.

Reply #94 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Pbhead, reply 93
THIS is the primary reason multiplayer is so empty.

I wouldn't call it the primary problem.  Most of the time I can in fact find the people in the Lobby and tell them how to fix it.  I think the real problem is that 98% of all Sins buyers never contemplated trying to play it online.  Either that or for whatever reason this game just didn't appeal to the online multiplayer RTS crowd.

Reply #95 from Sins Forums Top

Still, a mesh issue will immediately turn any prospective multiplayer gamer off.  This is definitely something worth looking at and fixing.

Reply #96 from Sins Forums Top

I've reinstalled Diplomacy on my new computer and I'm quite dispointed to see that my Diplomacy version is still not yet in French language whereas it has been from several months available in French in stores.

Any date for this ?

The patch could be also the occasion to put the French version on the servers, at least I hope... :)

Reply #97 from Sins Forums Top

Can I start a new game this evening or should I wait a bit for releasing (beta) patch? I play a match three-four days  :blush:

Reply #98 from Sins Forums Top

The reason for that is budgeting. The AI will often spend its money on higher priority things and leave its constructor sitting in limbo waiting for funds to build the starbase. Because the Vasari starbase requires more money to deploy, this means the migrator is often waiting for longer.

I think there is something else going on in the engine besides just budgeting. If I create a dedicated starbase constructor with the exact same Vasari cost structure then the AI builds the starbases just fine much earlier in the game.

I also tried using the Vasari colonizer/starbase constructor dual role in my mod and ultimately gave up on it and added a dedicated starbase constructor to avoid the issue in my mod as well. The more expensive deployment does not seem to cause an issue with the dedicated starbase constructor.

Regardless the reason, It's worth looking at as it severly gimps versus Vasari gameplay fun in Single Player games.

Reply #99 from Sins Forums Top

Yarlen, can you at least allow modders the ability to modify AI ourselves then? My buddies tell me that it is hardcoded and we don't have access to it???

Sorry no, this is far outside the scope of what we're currently able to do.

Reply #100 from Sins Forums Top

Ok... What about the Vasari AI starbase construction logic. The Colonizer/Starbase Constructor AI seems to have issues building starbases while the dedicated TEC/Advent AI seem to get star bases up much quicker.

Not sure what you're referring to. The Vasari starbase has a tech upgrade that allows it to build faster. That's by design since it's mobile and designed for offense.

I haven't seen speed that comes after faster but if it was it would be really hard to manage all aspects of battle (microing). So I would say faster is fast enough.

The game is about as fast as it's going to get. Going faster than it is now dramatically increases the risk of crashes and desyncs in multiplayer from what I understand (you can already adjust the speed in single-player).

Is there any chance that the patch could also include a fix to eliminate the mesh error problem that Trinity purchasers experience when they try to play online?

Last night a guy tried to join a 4v4 several times and those of us who were in the game chat channel (where you can chat while waiting for your game to fill) felt badly for him and didn't have any way to reach out to him. (After you get the mesh error, you are sent to a blank channel where no one can find you, and not the Lobby channel.) It was kind of sad. I like to tell people how they can fix the problem by directing them to the sticky thread in the Technical forum, but sometimes you just can't find the person in the chat Lobby.

We haven't heard/seen this before.  We'll need more info in order to look into it.