WYSIWYG for Drone Riots

[Mart]

An idea for something, that would make playing SMACX with drone riots more straightforward:

An option of WYSIWYG for drone riots - what you see is what you get.

In standard rules and also new rules for drones, that can be set in recent patches, there is some predictable/unpredictable element.
In some cases we can just tell, there is going to be drone rioting next turn. But there are situations like:
- next turn population grows
- a facility is completed with effect on drone riots
- maybe other, that do not come to my mind now.
in which we may not predict what happens. So we either "play safe" and excessively assign psych or doctors, etc. Or risk and sometimes have that detrimental 1 turn delay for base production, research, economy. Sometimes we just cannot tell how many drones/superdrones/phantom drones there will be.

And this is a problem for players, who play "on the edge" of drone riots. Often in multiplayer games.

The idea is to make drone riots the first check in the turn processing.
If that would be possible to make in the exe, then we would have WYSIWYG for this.
Population growth, facility completion would come later, so if at the end turn you saw a base "in red" this is exactly what would happen. No more setting a base with a drone cause recreation commons are to be completed next turn.
Very useful for some of the options for the new drone rules.

[binTravkin]

Actually, I've noticed that if you have the popups on for drone riots, you get the chance to "fix" them.
The icon still appears over the base, but you can, for example, rush things in it (as opposed to not being able as in real drone riots), so I assume, the base is, in fact, operational as if there were no riots.

[Buster's Uncle]

Say, I just realized this belongs in Bug/Patch...

[Mart]

That is in singleplayer.
In multiplayer, however, you get no "review of bases" maintenance round.
At the end turn, you can either enter password for the next player or save the game. So no chance to correct the base.

[Geo]

I'm all for WYSIWYG if possible, but wonder how it could work since AFAICS processing drones first at the onset of a turn solves nothing. You can't always 'predict' at the end of your turn what's the situation is going to be after you press next turn.

[Mart]

That is the point of making drone riots in the beginning of turn processing:
nothing can change between end turn push and drone riots determination, because all changes are going to be after. So drone riots would occur only when you can see on F4 screen "in red" bases

[Mart]

Well, as I think of it now.
I remember, someone years ago was writing about so-called:
soft-riots
hard-riots

with soft being able to prevent them in this maintenance round, and hard, that we cannot prevent them?
Anyone knows more about it?

[Yitzi]

True WYSIWYG (where, if the base would grow from size 6 to 7 and therefore have 6 citizens and 1 drone, you see 6 citizens and 1 drone) would be too confusing, due to showing a different number of population than the actual base.

However, the problems you describe would be fixed by WYGIWYS (what you get is what you see, i.e. changing the occurrence of drone riots, ecodamage, etc. to match what you saw last turn) can currently be made to happen in most cases (the exception is if enemy movements caused your production to change):

In alphax.txt, there is the line:
1,       ; If non-zero, recalculate base statistics after each change for non-AI {under -2 billion to over 2 billion}

Change that 1 to a 0, and you will effectively get WYGIWYS.

[Mart]

I think, this is what I mean, exactly: WYGIWYS.
We see at the end turn if the base is indicated as rioting (F4 screen base is "in red"). And this exactly happens regardless of the events, e.g. other faction movements or facilities completed.

By WYSIWYG, I meant that it pertains only to drone riots. Not that we need to see expected state of the base next turn. This effectively would be, that rioting happens around the turn end, and population growth, facilities completed, etc. would not influence rioting. I think, that placing "drone riots" procedure at the beginning of maintenance would do this.
In standard case, we know, that facilities are built before "drone rioting procedure," growth is also before. While these facilities completed before are beneficial in case of Rec commons, growth is detrimental (often adding a drone).

I will check this rule "recalculate base statistics after each change for non-AI "

[Yitzi]

I think, this is what I mean, exactly: WYGIWYS.
We see at the end turn if the base is indicated as rioting (F4 screen base is "in red"). And this exactly happens regardless of the events, e.g. other faction movements or facilities completed.

Basically, although it's not actually completely unaffected by other faction movements; anything that happens on another faction's turn could cause unexpected drone riots.

By WYSIWYG, I meant that it pertains only to drone riots. Not that we need to see expected state of the base next turn. This effectively would be, that rioting happens around the turn end, and population growth, facilities completed, etc. would not influence rioting. I think, that placing "drone riots" procedure at the beginning of maintenance would do this.

Placing the "drone riots" procedure at the beginning of maintenance would do that, but would also mean that if you see that a drone riot will happen next turn and hurry a rec commons, the drone riots will happen before the rec commons is built, and prevent the rec commons from being built.

At least the way I set it, the rec commons won't prevent the drone riots the turn they're built, but will be built so that they don't continue.

Making it possible to have growth happen after drone riots but facilities before might work...if, after checking out the recalculation change you still feel it's worth doing, feel free to nominate it for the next patch version when said nominations open.

[Mart]

..
Placing the "drone riots" procedure at the beginning of maintenance would do that, but would also mean that if you see that a drone riot will happen next turn and hurry a rec commons, the drone riots will happen before the rec commons is built, and prevent the rec commons from being built.

Yes, this is the price for clear situation. You could not keep a base "in red" only because some future events would occur (like completing rec commons) and help the drones. That would prevent situations like:
- rec. commons are built, however, recalculation causes, that more superdrones or phantom drones appear and that rec. commons no longer prevent drone riots.
A player would need to deal with drone riots in "make it now" manner. Like making enough doctors, etc.
So when you have a base "in red" that is clear indication, that drone riots will happen.