Colonisation Moonbase V0.1.6a is now out!

[SJones]

This is a quick fix of several key issues in 0.1.5a, notably the 50 population cap, it also fixes the UI for the health bar overlapping other UI, adds a line to the repair ships target when it is moving to its target to understand any possible issues here of ships going walk about fixes issues with the UI health bar not updating, also fixes loading buildings health bar to its correct amount. have fun and please dont forget to report any bugs

[sphinxgate]

Ah just noticed you've uploaded v 0.1.6a - ignore my emails, I suspect you've fixed those bugs with this release.

[SJones]

Sphinxgate has pointed out several issues with the new build, again relating to the repair ships.... this seems to be related to forcing them to change repair targets, if you do this then at the very least no other repair ship will automatically repair that building in the future as the game believes it is still being repaired. further to this point, the new UI health bars, while they seem to work to a point, they do give incorrect data, the only true way to find out their actual health is by clicking on the building and opening its info UI, the health bar at the bottom there is generated at the time of the click and is accurate. I dont foresee any other big issues and as these are minor problems will not be putting out a patch for these, instead they will be in the next build that hopefully will have a fair few big additions, this is unless major issues arise that stop gameplay all together

[sphinxgate]

Do you think demolishing and rebuilding the offending building (that will not be repaired) is a work around for the time being ?

[sphinxgate]

Post for new bugs; - Think there may be another bug if you place a construction prior to another construction completing as well (edit - may have been related to Hydroponics construction).- Research points are counting up, yet the research station is out of service.- Hydroponics build time seems inaccurate, takes a while to become active following blue line vertical build/draw.

[SJones]

As to your question, yes deleting and replacing will workother ways to solve this:avoid manually sending repair ships in the first placeif you need to send them, then you can also re-send them and they will repairif you let them finish repairing after manually sending them back it should reset the normal behavior as it finishes the normal procedure. will take a look at the research points issue could you explain the construction issue, what occurs that you expect to not happen - I have not had any issues myself with doing this, but will test it more to make sure.

[sphinxgate]

I placed a Hydroponics construction and then immediately started construction on another Hydroponics construction, game input ceased and had to restart. Not noticed this happening on any other construction. Just noticed another minor issue - After clicking a repair ship and then the cancel button, the button's disappear on mouse-down, other menus are mouse-up. The upshot is if a building is underneath the cancel button when releasing the mouse button on mouse-up it opens the building status. Another quick thought, what triggers the repair ships into action automatically, does a building have to de-activate (Failure) or is there an earlier trigger point. Concious that I can't manually dispatch the repair ships and some constructions (namely solar panels) are all created at roughly the same time in the early build. Edit - on the deactivation of the research station, it was in a failed state and not manually deactivated (which seems to stop the research points correctly).

[SJones]

Thanks for the info, will change the interaction with the repair ship menu to be on mouse up so that wont happen, could possibly be the cause to some errors. as to the automatic repair, every time a ship finishes its current task, it searches through all buildings that are 18% health and less and that do not currently have a repair ship on its way to it or repairing it. I will take a look at building lots of things in succession to see if I can reproduce the same error, I am planning on putting in a fair amount of debug info into the next build to catch exactly where things are going wrong.

[SJones]

O.K. so I can now confirm that the repair ships will repair to full health, and that they may feel like they are not repairing at times, it turns out that the time between each health segment is doubled, this is incorrect, it means that the to get to full health, the last quarter of the bar would take 60+ seconds. (in the example I have seen its at 93 seconds for the final section) now I have found the issue it can be fixed, its not game breaking exactly but its problematic considering you cant re-direct repair ships. If people are struggling with this build I can put out a new one sooner rather than later.

[sphinxgate]

I'm torn between asking for a new release and leaving you to iron out some of the other issues for v.0.7aI can continue to play the game in its current state but it does require quite a significant repair management strategy, rather than letting the repair ships do their thing.The total repair time isn't that bad as long as the buildings are fully repaired, from memory there were some counter issues between the new UI and the previous construction status leaving some buildings half repaired.Repairing structures is an important step so getting the improved diagnostics may save time later on.I imagine you want to get a stable alpha release out there before you move to beta so the cosmetic parts can wait.The building deactivations need to function correctly and be visible to the user. The first Colony building currently doesn't indicate failure and I think that would be a show stopper for most people, I don't think the repair ships recognise those as failed either so manual repair in previous versions was the only option.I can do a building checklist if you like with any issues I uncover based on my build order so at least the first part of the game runs smoothly.Happy to be directed by you though, which parts are low/high priorities etc.

[SJones]

When the first construction building(s) de-activate, zoom all the way in and make sure they do not have the barrier around them, the whole idea of the barrier was to have them similar to below with that in mind 99% of them that are in game are way oversized, apart from the construction buildings one, this was a test to see how it looked, which is difficult to see from a distance and was left like that due to the time it takes to place all the barriers at their correct size and position, as such the large ones are temporary measure, its why I have incorporated a disabled icon on the buildings UI because of the small size it may look as if the construction buildings are not de-activated but actually are, so double check this.I have not really checked this out a lot myself, but when I have, I have not noticed an issue personally, plus the activation / deactivation code is not building related, its code that is re-used over all buildings, so if it fails I would expect it to be on more than just one type of building. I got some other things to fix and test but will keep an eye out for that issue, as you rightly say its a big issue if it happens often, something that would need to be done for the beta. A solution though, may be to build lots of repair buildings, their maintenance cost is extremely low as they where the last buildings to be added and have not gave thought to balancing them yet, with enough repair ships there shouldnt be an issue, they will just take space up that other buildings could / should take.

[SJones]

as an example of what it should look like [attachment=2392:barrierexample.jpg]

[wolvern]

would it be easier to have the repair ships auto repair and the buildings individually be able to call for emergency repairs instead of assigning the ships?

[SJones]

Hi wolvern, they do auto-repair, currently set to repair when a building goes below 18% of its original health (that percentage will soon be user editable) however they will always go for the lowest health building that is not already being repaired. this means that a lower priority building may be being targeted, yet you want a specific building repaired before hand to ensure continuous base operations, this is what the manual targeting/assigning system was implemented for so you can have complete control. the issue is that currently they don't work all that well due to errors in the code that will be fixed for the next build (testing this thoroughly myself as the errors have continued long enough now) further more to all of the above is the repair ship fuel, it will cost you fuel to run and maintain a fleet of repair ships, this is why there is a damage limit (the currently 18%). otherwise the fuel spent traveling to and from a building is wasted if the building already has 90% health. thus the adjustment so each player can get a balance to the risk of de-activation and the amount of fuel used, for those safer players they can increase it so that when a building gets below 30% it will be targeted for repair but may hinder progression as they won't have the fuel to spend elsewhere.

[wolvern]

i haven't noticed the fuel counter going up at all... it's not listed in any structure i've looked at as an item to be produced?

[sphinxgate]

Don't think the fuel resource has been switched on yet wolvern, a good job as I have lots of repair ships ....I suspect a construction that manufactures fuel will be on its way with various upgrades for mid-late game.

[SJones]

Yep, the fuel is a place holder for now, until everything else is working, the idea behind it is that in real life governments and the private industry plan to use the moon as a stepping stone into solar colonisation. The moon has less gravity than earth and so much easier to get ships into orbit (plus there is not atmospheric friction/drag) and they believe there is enough water on the moon to produce hydrogen for fuel, so they mine the fuel from the moon and launch craft that are much bigger in size for less. this mechanic will be used for goods and population transfer between the earth and the moon and for the later construction options. as sphynx said though its not switched on as there is nothing to mine it or manufacture it yet and further more the repair ships would require a lot if in the games current state as you needs lots of repair ships to keep your base going due to the bad coding/behaviour dont forget this is alpha yet and some things are not fully implemented or just don't work at all. with that said, when purchasing buildings the colonists storage meter was where the rocket meter was, and the purchase cost for colonists have not been moved over yet, so the fuel cost is technically the population cost.

[SJones]

GOOD NEWS! from all the tests I have done the repair ships are now fixed and working nicely, there are special circumstances to build in such as de-activating or deleting the repair building to save their current progress but for the most part all working. To the point now that I have not had 1 de-activation within my (small) base

[wolvern]

@SJones, i really hope you make a first person style of this later on where time moves more slowly because we're building the structures and maintaining them ourselves :3 Achievement unlocked: get blown out an airlock (remember to de-pressurize the airlock!)

[SJones]

The first person may be more effort than its worth, you have the ship movement scheme (somewhat currently broke) where you can fly around your own base, you can change your view angle from the top down perspective that is set as standard. On another note, for those that have played 0.1.6, other than the repair ship problems has anyone encountered any other bugs? The 0.1.7 is coming soon and any bugs reported now possibly has time to be fixed for it.