One-turn overflow still not working

Today, Paul said he was gonna have a "come to Jesus" meeting with his staff and get to the bottom of this issue once and for all. (maybe he was not quite as emphatic as I have implied)

I do careful micro for the first few turns, because it's critical imo.   After that for new colonies I remember basic stuff like a factory is 30 points so if I have a new colony that has 13 max production I know the right setting at 100% social is 10 and the rest research to reduce waste.   When the colonies are more developed I pay little or no attention unless there is a critical build in place.   Say I want a tech cap built ASAP, then I will go 100$ social and set the wheel to get the minimum turns.   But none of this takes a lot of timel.

I also try to keep things simple by appending a letter to the colony name, using R or M or $ or I.   Specializing actually makes it easier to avoid bad wastage.  Then when I come back I know what to specialize in, but I don't pay too much attention to overflow once the colony is going, and I am sure I am wasting some production.   And the point could be made that when I have 20+ colonies the waste can be huge.

At the current stage of the game with the dumb AI I don't think more is required, but after B5 I am thinking a tighter control on stuff is going to be imperative.   Anxious to see how this is handled.

Agreed.  Stardock, lets rejoin the 21st century of 4X gaming and fix this issue.  This game already has plenty of micro.

Vent spleen time...

I missed their last stream I'd like to say thank you to those who asked about overflow yet again.  It's time to take the blinkers off Stardock.  At this point it's turned into a ****ing joke.  If Stardock is trying to make people think the Beta "experience" their offering is just a money grab for a half completed game their doing a great job.  I certainly don't feel feedback's been listened too, just constantly ignored.  There are a huge amount of threads on this topic and their asked about it every stream for months, yes they have a small team working on this but I feel it should have fixed or at least acknowledged ages ago.

What more do beta testers need to do to get the message across, seriously????  It seems Paul might be finally realizing what so many of us have been saying for so long doubt it will in Beta 5 though.  It should be delayed until it is!  I know some people won't agree with me these are my personal opinions, imo a fan boy/yes man attitude is not going to help Stardock make a good game assuming they listen, that's not what a beta tester should do if there's a problem let them know, and if it's something that makes their game infuriating to play definitely let them know, there's been too many people saying this is ok it's not.  Disagree with me?  Name a good 4X game in the last decade without some type of overflow mechanic or one that wouldn't have been a better game with it.

Well, if we're venting spleens, let me do as well.

IMO, some of beta testers have been their own worst enemies on this subject because they keep confusing two SEPARATE complaints into one.  Namely, building multiple things at once and having excess production spill over to the next project.  They aren't at all the same thing.  

Yet each and EVERY TIME the subject of production comes up, the Bulid Multiple Things At Once folks immediately muddy the waters when production concerns are raised.

No wonder Paul is close to tearing his hair out on the subject.  Each and every time he tries to explain what is intended a crowd shouts him down and starts talking about Build Multiple Things.

Well, it's clear that is not happening.  So for those of us who want to see things as intended, please for the love of whatever deity or concept you like STOP BRINGING MULTIPLE THINGS AT ONCE UP! 

Really, I'm begging now.  Just.  Stop.

The thing is, Paul seems to think overflow is in the game.  According to the latest devstream, he's going to talk to the coders to make sure what is supposed to be happening is happening.  Thus it is a bug that it isn't.  And if it isn't in Beta 5, then we need to let them know that it is still a bug.

Yet each time we try to tell the devs that production/research isn't working as intended, it's immedately presumed we are talking about multiple things at once.

I can't imagine why.  No.  Not at all.

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tl;dr:  For the Love of Whatever, if you want Production Spillover stop talking about buiding more than one thing at a time. Please.  Pretty please with sugar on top. :p

Yeah I agree we should be aiming and asking for the minimum that they've said will be be the case at this point, I've agreed with that for quite a while.  People can ask for more later.  You're right it muddies the waters a bit, but even so with all the excuses of muddy water, small team, limited time to get features in, Paul being relayed wrong information and whatever else I still think some working version of overflow that their able/willing to implement should be in the game by Beta 5.  Release is not that far away it's a too important mechanic not to be in by now.

I really don't see a problem this.

Do you want to expound a little on why you think that?  One sentence doesn't say much, it suggests you don't know what we're talking about.

the point is that overflow doesnt change much when it comes to micromanaging

also, research overflow did work in Beta 3, production overflow not,

didnt test it in B4, but assume it is still the same

There's massive amounts of wasted production and research if you don't micromanage currently (up to 99.9% in a turn in some circumstances), overflow would alleviate the need to micromanage to prevent waste.  If you don't care about that then well are you really playing the game to win or just clicking randomly and hoping.  It becomes a strategy game without a strategy.  Not a way I'd be interested in playing personally.

Watch the soak test in the stream you can clearly see research and production overflow isn't working it never has in any beta.  On completion of a building/research it always returns to the zero amount nothing invested therefore no overflow.

Echoing the above, research overflow did not work in Beta 3, or any other beta. It could be triggered by some ideology scenario, but that's it.

Also echoing the above, turn-by-turn, planet-by-planet micro is needed to prevent wasted production. That goes almost completely away with one-turn overflow. If you don't mind wasting production, then you probably don't micromanage in the first place, in which case this topic is not for you.

At this point my primary beef isn't that they haven't fixed it, it's that they think it's fixed! Makes me concerned about their QA and beta feedback processes.

Yes, research overflow does work, and has worked.  (which is really what mortili said, that it does work)  But you'll never get more than 1 tech per turn (except in those cases you mentioned), so it may be hard to notice.  At most it will make your next tech take 1 less turn, but only if you're lucky enough to have the numbers align in your favor.

EDIT: it looks like I was wrong.

That's  strange.  Because I've had cases where I thought I had a whole bunch of research get flushed down the drain.  Usually when I find out I only have a small amount of research left on a tech before going to the next one on the next turn.

Might  have to fire up a game tomorrow and triple check for this on my own system (Too late at night for me to do it right now).

I'll try to check it, too.  But it can be difficult to tell with research.  But I'll try.

Difficult, but not that difficult.  I'd check it out in the early mid game when one can be cranking out 1500 to 2000 research points a turn.  Set it up so you only have, say, 50 research points to research something, then save the game.  Go to the next turn, find out how many research points it takes to complete the next tech (this, admittedly, can be a bit of a pain, but it's not that difficult), more or less.  Then save the game under a different name.

Then go back to the first save, massively dial down the research to that 50 or so points that one needs to complete that tech (this is where the Production Wheel comes in handy), and go to the next turn.  If there is any difference needed in the number of research points to research the next tech, then, yes, research overflow is in.  But if it isn't, well, then it's not.

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I also wonder if choosing a tech on another branch might matter here.  It shouldn't, but one never knows.

Please look at the video in my original post, start at 4:33, and tell me what I did wrong. After completing the first tech, I expected some overflow into the next tech. I got none.

since you cannot que up a second tech in the research tree ATM it is impossible for research overflow to work. there is nowhere for that research overflow to go.

 the only exception to this is the ideology choices but thats not what we are talking about here

the way it worked in b3 was that the overflow was added AFTER you click turn on watever new tech you selected.

basically in rare cases you would complete 2 turns research in 1 Turn.

I tested it in b4 and it doesnt seem to work anymore...

I'm sorry mortili but I think it's more likely you're wrong, imagined it, misremembered or whatever.  I did a YT Let's Play for Beta 3 with the Yor, if there was research overflow then you'd probably be able to see it work in that, there wasn't.

After doing some very quick testing, it looks like research overflow isn't working in any way.  Every time I try, left over research points are lost, are not applied to the next tech you choose, or the next tech in the tech tree.  The developers once (at least once) said that research overflow is in the game, but not communicated well to the player, but as far as I can tell it isn't in the game at all. (except with ideology traits) Maybe they believe it is in the game, but it isn't.

in nearly every dev stream where its been asked when overflow will be in the response has been its in and working yet here we are again

Thank you for validating that I'm not insane, at least on this topic.

And I thought this is a feature, not a bug ^^

Also I learned that, apparently, research costs go up over time?  The first tier of techs took 2 turns for me to research (at 29 research/turn) but as I continued the game (not building or changing anything) those same techs - the ones I didn't grab early - took 3 and eventually 4 turns to complete, still with 29/turn.  I don't mean to change the topic, but I didn't expect that to happen, and it made testing a bit more confusing.  But I still saw zero evidence for working overflow; on a 4 turn tech, each turn gave exactly the same amount of completion - there was no rollover on the first turn of a new tech, ever, even when the last tech obviously had very few points left for its last turn.

Yes they do.  It was some source of chatter a while back, but is working as intended.  AIUI, the devs either want it so that people can't just get early techs super cheaply if they wait on them or they want it so techs will always cost some amount of research for the players as they get more and more research points per turn.  Mostly it's a game balance thing, near as I can tell.  

The fact that there is "tech inflation" is one of the reasons why I have been suggesting in the chats recently that the tech screen show how many more points it will take to FINISH a tech.

I don't mind tech inflation all that much.  I just like knowing where I stand on how long it's going to take to actually finish something.