Thinking about Pirates

[bvanevery]

Details it has to go

it has to go

I contemplated upgrading my Recon Rovers to X Recon Rovers, for instant exploit.  But I like the idea of wrapping Domai around my finger.  For that to happen, he can't have a cheating defensive unit.

Details it's bug fixing

it's bug fixing

I don't remember ever using the Scenario Editor otherwise.  I've wished for an app or hack where I could disable this slander.

Details there's the other one

there's the other one

I didn't need the Scenario Editor to find the 1st one.  I just happened to find it here now.  Can't remember if I seriously looked before.  Thought I did, but what if I was sloppy?  The unit doesn't have any orders, so I don't think it was moving around.

Details drone designs 1 of 2

drone designs 1 of 2

Details drone designs 2 of 2

drone designs 2 of 2

The Free Drones don't have a design for a Clean 3-Res Transport.  I can't nuke a design that doesn't exist?

Details my bletcherous hack

my bletcherous hack

My experience is you can't really delete individual units in a city for some reason.  You end up having to wipe out every unit in a city.  So, I assigned his 2 units to me!  I hope that doesn't crash stuff.  If it works, I'll disband them.  Hmm, maybe I can do that before exiting the Scenario Editor.  I'm also remembering that working from the SUPPORT screen sometimes gives better results for various things.

Details home sweet home

home sweet home

I used the Scenario Editor to edit the units' data.  I assigned them a new Home, Skeleton Key.  That's the city I'm sending all the Recon Rovers from.

Details soon to die

soon to die

Maybe the step of assigning the units to me wasn't necessary.  I didn't remember about using the SUPPORT menu until after I'd done it.

Details go away you

go away you

Details and you too

and you too

Details none left

none left

Details new defense regime

new defense regime

The penalty for cheating is you get to be more vulnerable than you would have been.

Details map back to normal

map back to normal

Scenario Editor deactivated.

[bvanevery]

Details think I killed a scout

think I killed a scout

Details more cheating

more cheating

Where did he get the production to do all of that?  It's not a completion from popping a pod.  It would just line up with the end of blocks in that case.  All white.

Well, this is going to turn out awfully similar to "what if he'd just built legal units".  I won't feel bad for him.

[bvanevery]

Details how

how

MY 2152.  How did he go right back to building it?  Can I retire this design and thereby wipe out his build?

I just looked at my unit workshop.  I have no actual design for this unit.

[bvanevery]

Details so much is legal

so much is legal

MY 2154.  I don't need sunspots for anything.

[bvanevery]

Details got away with it

got away with it

MY 2164.  My armored speeder survived a hit from a weakened X Recon Rover.  Now I get full shooting at weak stuff in this base.

Details first make it mine

first make it mine

But first I have to get rid of the erroneous Clean 3-Res Transport.  I couldn't just right click on Domai's SUPPORT menus.  First I had to make the unit my own.  Then I could right click on it, and I had the option to disband it. 

Now I know where he got the production from last time.  Disbanding it in his city, boosts his production!  I'm trying to decide whether that's fair or not.  It's his minerals, but suddenly he gets a huge boost in something he wants.  Ambiguous. 

Details defecting

defecting

I figured out that I can change the number of moves it has remaining.  Now I can sail it out of base before disbanding.

Details you get nothing this time

you get nothing this time

This is punishment for making me do this more.

[bvanevery]

Details stalemate

stalemate

MY 2165.  Ok, the garrisoning algorithm was good enough that I couldn't trivially rush through a land bottleneck.  There was enough sea and fungus in the way that I wasn't just going to come up with a combined amphibious assault quickly.  I started to make an armored transport now, to bring into the theater.  That might not have been strictly necessary, given that I have naval control, and Domai doesn't seem interested in a fleet.  But I'm tired of having to intervene when a Clean 3-Res unit is built.

I conclude that Thinker isn't actually good at the earliest base settlement.  Rather, it relies on a nutrient bonus at the landing site to accelerate AI growth, and the safety of starting roughly equidistant from other factions.  The real strength of Thinker is ongoing settlement.  There's probably some threshold of cities it passes, where it starts to become a dominating strategy.  Probably also starts wearing out poor humans like me!  The AI will push the pods, but I won't.

I conclude that Thinker isn't especially programmed to avoid Repealing the U.N. Charter.  And it makes better immediate use of chemical weapons than the stock AI.  The latter is rather reactive about it.

With the Pirates, the threshold of "when to stop making minerals?" isn't what I thought.  It seems to be "when you have sufficient war materials" and the decision is not per tile of a base, but per city of an empire.  I had cities that were "complete" for military output, that I just kept cranking.  And since I was getting enough Clean Whatever out of them, other bases started building Biology Labs and getting Tidal Harnesses instead of Mining Platforms. 

[bvanevery]

Ok as y'all know, I've played a lot of Pirate games now.  I'm done with that for the time being.  I think it's pretty clear to me that "minerals first" is the viable Pirate strategy, even if it doesn't involve that many cities.

The more interesting result, to me at least, is what happens when I combine my mod with Thinker, as well as with Thinker.ini settings I consider more appropriate.  I might do another AAR on that subject, a full blown production values AAR, not with Pirates because I'm sick of them.  But first I think I should play at least 1 game where I beat or nearly beat it.  Make sure there isn't some horrible midgame calamity that I haven't experienced or some such.

I hope also that Clean 3-Res Transport bug was a fluke, as I'm not going to do a "full blown" AAR having to open up the Scenario Editor to deal with it.  If it isn't a fluke, I'd be looking for something that gives away "unit #4" in the code, that assumes it's a plain Transport.  It would be better to give "unit #14", the Unity Transport.  That unit is unlikely to be modded because it's hardwired into the stock binary to be something you receive from popping pods.  Or if it is modded, the modding is probably intentional that you're supposed to receive that, whenever you would have received a Unity Transport in the original game.  For instance, my UTs aren't slow and have Deep Radar on them.

[Vidsek]

So far so good, m'boy!   As always, I learned something useful for my gameplay in addition to getting insights into the progress of the mod being tested.

[bvanevery]

Details erroneous Clean 3-Res Transport again

erroneous Clean 3-Res Transport again

MY 2166 in a new game where I'm the Caretakers, not the Pirates.  Probably the Usurpers haven't actually researched E4 Bioadaptive Resonance yet.  Especially since their research foci are Discover, Build, Conquer.

Yeah, I don't want to keep playing / testing this Frankenstein combo while this bug is outstanding.  Time to make a modest effort to track it down.  Activating the Scenario Editor.

Details the one transport

the one transport

They've only acquired the one.

Details techless

techless

As predicted, they don't remotely have the tech.

Details expected tech progress

expected tech progress

My prereqs for E4 Bioadaptive Resonance are E3 Field Modulation and C3 Advanced Subatomic Theory.  The latter gives Plasma armor.  It's just way too early for anyone to have figured that out.

I'll need to check whether this problem occurs in the stock binary.  Having Clean 3-Res Transport in the slot where Transport usually is, is new in my most recent mod release version 1.52.  I haven't seen this problem in my games, but I've been playing either WTP or Thinker way more than I've been playing my own mod.  From my own Changelog in my readme_mod.txt:

TRANSPORT OBSESSION

- Transport: removed.  The AI obsesses about building Transports, particularly the Pirate AI.  I was trying to stop it by removing this unit.  However, basic naval units have no tech requirements, so the game just designs a Transport for the player anyways.  At least this saves a predefined unit slot.
- Clean Transport: removed.  The AI obsesses about producing this.
- *Sea Formers: removed.  It's a disabled unit design.  Recycling this slot makes the unit table shorter.  Hopefully this does not trigger any bugs.  I've been paranoid about that possibility, but I've never seen any evidence of it.
- Clean Plasma Transport: new predefined unit available with C3 Advanced Subatomic Theory.  Takes the slot in the unit table that was occupied by *Sea Formers.  The AI is determined to obsess about Transports, and some kind of unit will need to be provided sometime.  Clean Synth Transport is an obvious design, but it is not offered.  It causes the AI to start obsessing about Transports way too early.  Starting with C3 Advanced Subatomic Theory is a compromise.
- Clean 3-Res Transport: new predefined unit available with C4 Bioadaptive Resonance.  Takes the slot in the unit table that was occupied by Transport.  The AI is determined to obsess about stacking sea bases full of transports, so it is best to offer a unit with the maximum defensive benefit.

I ran 2 AI vs. AI test games.  1st was under my usual map generation conditions with random factions.  2nd was an ocean world with Caretakers, Usurpers, and Pirates explicitly included in the game.  Watched the games for 100 turns, checking at turn 60 and turn 100.  Neither game produced any Clean 3-Res Transport unit.  Although code paths could be different and weird, I provisionally conclude this is not a stock binary bug.

Since Thinker always produces this unit, it suggests that something in the Thinker unit design code is bugged.  Or the predefined unit reading code.  I'm still looking at the sources, my 1st time doing so.  Nothing has lept out so far.

Finally found it.  terranx_enums.h is "wrong".  Nobody ever guaranteed that these units would be unmodded.  Any time BSC_TRANSPORT_FOIL is used in Thinker, it's just going to use "unit #4" in the predefined units table, whatever that is.  The stock binary doesn't make the assumption that "unit #4" is an immutable, allowable transport unit.

Code: [Select]

enum VehBasicUnit {
    BSC_COLONY_POD = 0,
    BSC_FORMERS = 1,
    BSC_SCOUT_PATROL = 2,
    BSC_TRANSPORT_FOIL = 3,
    BSC_SEA_FORMERS = 4,
    BSC_SUPPLY_CRAWLER = 5,
    BSC_PROBE_TEAM = 6,
    BSC_ALIEN_ARTIFACT = 7,
    BSC_MIND_WORMS = 8,
    BSC_ISLE_OF_THE_DEEP = 9,
    BSC_LOCUSTS_OF_CHIRON = 10,
    BSC_UNITY_ROVER = 11,
    BSC_UNITY_SCOUT_CHOPPER = 12,
    BSC_UNITY_FOIL = 13,
    BSC_SEALURK = 14,
    BSC_SPORE_LAUNCHER = 15,
    BSC_BATTLE_OGRE_MK1 = 16,
    BSC_BATTLE_OGRE_MK2 = 17,
    BSC_BATTLE_OGRE_MK3 = 18,
    BSC_FUNGAL_TOWER = 19,
    BSC_UNITY_MINING_LASER = 20,
    BSC_SEA_ESCAPE_POD = 21,
    BSC_UNITY_GUNSHIP = 22,
};

[bvanevery]

Probe teams are a Tier 1 tech in my mod.  They also have a pure Conquer focus, so if you don't study Conquer or trade for it, you're not going to learn it.  Hmm, how did Zhakarov learn it then, with a pure Discover research focus?  Well it's Tier 1.  He could have popped it from a pod, but it does raise an eyebrow.  I don't think he can instantaneously trade with Miriam between the moments of our diplomatic dialogue.  Maybe he's in contact with Santiago.

[..]

I'm going to try to remember to look at this circumstance after I'm done with this game.

Things he had:

Details odd spread of early techs

odd spread of early techs

Things his only other contact, Cha Dawn had:

Details Cha Dawn's techs

Cha Dawn's techs

In my mod:

Code: [Select]

Biogenetics,                Biogen,  0, 4, 0, 3, None, None, 000100000
Industrial Base,            Indust,  1, 0, 4, 3, None, None, 000000100
Centauri Ecology,           Ecology, 0, 0, 3, 4, None, None, 000000100
Doctrine: Mobility,         Mobile,  4, 0, 0, 3, None, None, 000000000
Polymorphic Software,       Poly,    4, 0, 0, 0, None, None,  000000000
High Energy Chemistry,      Chemist, 4, 0, 0, 0, None, None, 000000000
Adaptive Economics,         AdapEco, 3, 0, 2, 4, Ecology, Indust, 000000000
D1 Biogenetics is the only one that has any Discover component at all.  Now, he could have been lucky at popping some pods to get the various Tier 1 techs.  He could have traded with Cha Dawn to fill out some of the early stuff.  But this definitely raises an eyebrow and doesn't look like he's following his pure Discover research imperative.  Industrial Base is how I give Formers.  Centauri Ecology is how I give Recycling Tanks.  Adaptive Economics is how I give Hab Complexes.

Every single one of Cha Dawn's techs, in contrast, is something that someone studying pure Explore would obtain.  And in my mod, he's the pure Explore faction.  Also he'll be out capturing mindworms and popping pods, so picking up more Tier 1 techs from pods, is to be expected.

Let's see if I have a save before Cha Dawn is contacted.

There is possibly a non-Thinker explanation for the spread though:

Details University doesn't learn D2 Information Networks

University doesn't learn D2 Information Networks

D1 Biogenetics is trivial for the University to obtain and expected.  However, E1 Social Psych has no Discover component:

Code: [Select]

Social Psych,               Psych,   0, 0, 2, 4, None, None, 000000000So the University could be learning completely random techs, until E1 Social Psych is finally obtained.  Perhaps I should "bread crumb" Social Psych as a partial Discover tech, so that the University is not unreasonably delayed.

Details early University

early University

In MY 2121, the University already knew 4 techs before meeting Cha Dawn, including C1 Polymorphic Software.  But oddly, the one tech he didn't know, is the one tech he should have known: D1 Biogenetics.

It seems I myself put the Cult in contact with Zhakarov in MY 2127, in order to try to get Zhakarov's map.  That means MY 2123 is going to be the last save before they start talking.

Details likes houses more than labs

likes houses more than labs

HMMM in MY 2123 he'd already learned E2 Adaptive Economics.  That's weird.