This is essentially a "laundry list" of things I need to see fixed to make Rebellion a must-buy, and as such you're welcome to add your own, with solutions if possible. Some of these are partially referenced in "5 things you wish to see in Rebellion" (https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/408935) but I thought I'd just expand on what's in that thread. I am aware that some of these improvements are only slated for Sins 2 (whenever that comes out), but IMO unless the Sins 2 engine is a DRASTIC leap forward in terms of image quality and performance, then Ironclad are better off sticking with the current engine and upgrading it incrementally.
As a consummate lurker, I won't be posting any further in this thread, but I will be checking up on it from time to time. Go forth and flame!
Issues:
1. When I have 16 capships that I tell to attack a starbase from across a gravwell, invariably half of them will bunch up around the starbase, and the remainder will bump up against that half trying to get close enough to the starbase to attack it. This also applies to ships that are set to Group Jump.
2. AI going bat sh*t insane laying literally hundreds of mines in a gravwell it occupies, which have to be cleaned out after I take over that gravwell. I want to spend my time blowing up enemy ships, not minesweeping.
2.1. AI refusing to colonise an unoccupied planet with enemy mines in its gravwell, unless EVERY LAST ENEMY MINE is destroyed. Compounded by the fact that AIs are also incapable of clearing said mines themselves, meaning *I* have to do minesweeping duties for them as well.
2.2. Scout frigates being used in minesweeper role do not go after mines logically (e.g. target only the closest mine) but sometimes decide to wander off after a completely random mine on the other side of a gravwell. Due to the behaviour mentioned in (2), this often results in said frigate plowing directly through the minefield you've asked it to sweep, which makes the frigate go boom and me unhappy.
2.3. Mines are phased out, not invisible, which means when I ask my ships to travel through a hostile minefield, they should do their level best to avoid as many mines as possible.
3. Ridiculous ship turning circles. When I order a moving capship to turn 180 degrees, it should not traverse a massive arc to achieve this. Especially if that arc causes the ship to blunder through a minefield.
4. Starbase experience points are fixed at 400 regardless of how many upgrades the starbase does or doesn't have.
5. Multi-threading is not used effectively, if at all, with the result that my almost-ancient QX9650 never hits 100% on a single core with Sins running, never mind pushing the remaining cores. There's no excuse for this in 2011.
6. Sharing experience is good, but capships at max level should not receive experience points they cannot use. For example, if I have a level 1 capship and a level 10 capship, and both those ships destroy a target worth 100 points, each ship gets 50 points - when it would make more sense for the level 1 ship to get all 100 points and the level 10 ship to receive none.
7. Starbases should be able to level up like capships.
8. Pathfinding should not just take the LENGTH of the route into consideration, but also the SAFETY of the route. When I tell my ships to travel to a friendly gravwell 3 jumps away, and the shortest route is through an enemy gravwell, they must NOT choose that route unless there is no other option.
Solutions:
1. Make ships able to effectively maneuver in 3D space, i.e. go above/below each other. Add ship formations (e.g. Wall from Homeworld way back in 1999).
2. Fix the AI. Make mines invisible as well as phased out by default. Make scout frigates able to reveal all mines in a gravwell when they enter it, this will discourage enemy fleets from phasing in without doing recon. Add a researchable, intrinsic ability to minelaying frigates that allows them to detect enemy mines and "reprogram" them to your faction's cause.
3. When I order a ship to turn 180 degrees, it must either (a) lower its speed while performing the turn, so the resultant arc is smaller or ( switch off its engines, rotate on its axis, and restart its engines - whichever scenario achieves the fastest turnaround.
4. Starbase experience points should start at 400 and increase by, say, 50 points each time an offensive/defensive upgrade is installed. That means a fully-upgraded starbase will be worth 800 experience, which more accurately represents the challenge it takes to down one with such upgrades.
5. Thread the engine if this has not already been done. Threading will hinder debugging and require synchronisation, which increases overhead, but the throughput gained from increased parallelism will be dramatic. If the engine is well-threaded, refactor the threading code to more effectively split operations to cores so that the load is more equally balanced between them. This should also solve the late-game lag problem.
6. Prevent capships from receiving experience points when they reach the level cap.
7. Allow starbases to receive experience/share it with capships, but cap them at a lower level cap (e.g. 5) to prevent them from becoming too powerful.
8. Safety should be considered before length of journey, unless the player has explicitly Shift+clicked to set the route.
better cinematic mode... press cinematic mode and CTRL+SHIFT+Z to get rid of everything. Keeping the damn empire tree from bouncing all over the damn place is a must especially in a large battle and you like being able to manage ships without using the F*ing pause button.
Tnx for the tip!
I've heard that before and somehow I keep forgetting all about it.
@Stant123 32-bit applications are limited to 2 GB of memory on a 32-bit operating system. On a modern 64-bit OS like Win7 or Vista you can have any application get access to the 4 GB of memory one would expect from an unsigned 32-bit integer by using the LAA flag on the application. There was also a flag you could set on 32-bit Windows as far back as XP to give the application access to 3 GB, but it required both setting a config value on the OS and a launch flag on the application. See the third bullet point at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64#Windows for more info on LAA with a 32-bit application on a 64-bit version of windows.
The most recent beneficiary of this 64-bit advantage was Skyrim, where a lot of users suffered constant crashing without this flag set. In my own experience, it seemed to be tied to a memory leak triggered by alt-tabbing or using the Steam overlay for anything (e.g. chat or screenshots). Setting the flag using a 3rd party mod almost completely eliminated crashes for many (most?) users experiencing them, so much so that Bethesda released a patch the week before Christmas that officially put LAA support into the game.
Now, would SoaSE and its userbase benefit from this? The Steam hardware survey last month (http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey) showed that ~55% of the Steam userbase could make use of an LAA-flagged executable. You also don't necessarily need to actually have 2 GB of physical RAM to benefit from the LAA flag; there's also the swap file on the hard drive if you can handle the accompanying lag. It would also give modders breathing room when adding more ships/races/detail into the game without bumping into the 2 GB limit. It also SEEMS to be a simple enough change to make if the speed with which Bethesda rolled it out is any indication, releasing it in about 5 weeks after release while also releasing two patches for all three platforms during the same time.
@Everyone who doesn't go by the name of Maktaka, please just don't bother reading... Seriously, it's getting old.
@Maktaka I'm well aware of LAA, do a little forum search, you'll find PLENTY. Believe me. You'll even find posts from other people talking about what I might possibly say or how I might react once I get around to reading a post about it... Vegas puts odds on it. Okay, not really, but they could if they wanted to. Don't take the following as a rant or anything like that since most people tend to twist my comments into something like that when it had no intent at all, because they're retarded or insecure or something... It is what it is, and what it is, is me explaining to you why I know better.
No shit, really? Didn't I say:
I believe I did not 4 posts before you. And of course there's more that proponents never seem to get around to discussing, things that can cause system instability and poorer performance overall because you've been toying with things in an OS that wasn't designed for it in a system that potentially cannot handle it.
Don't care. Supreme Commander took advantage of it too. Here's the deal though. Neither of those are Sins of a Solar Empire now are they? But we'll get to the reason that is in a little bit, I want you to think about it first.
Been down this road before. Different game, different results. Here's the deal. I've been playing and modding Sins since it came out on both a 64bit OS and a 32bit OS. I've played the game with the flag enabled on both systems and off. Guess what?
That is from personal experience with THIS game, not taking testimony from another one and getting all frazzled over why it's not a part of THIS one. And guess what again? Sins doesn't really have a 2GB limit crashing issue anymore either.
I have to do this just because I think it's damned funny.
So what you're basically saying here is... Pay close attention now, cause this is funny... No, it really is... That Steam screws the game up so much that the game's creator had to modify THEIR game so that people could continue to play it... With Steam... Are you kidding me!?!?! If you're a fan of Steam, that is a terrible thing to admit! It further verifies my refusal to have any dealings with them. Holy hell that is funny. And then outside of that there's a memory leak in their game that they'd rather not take the time to fix. Amusing as hell. Okay, now back to what we were talking about before this little detour.
Nope. Already explained why twice now. In fact, I've even pointed out negatives to doing it. No updating, no online play, also no tech support if you have a problem, and it's a clear violation of the EULA that you agreed to at install... Not that anyone really cares about that last one, as I've said before in other threads, but still... Those that are outraged by online piracy and other things that are illegal should also be made aware that modifying the exe is illegal, just for completeness sake.
Okay, steam did that survey last month, Brad is doing an informal survey kind of about the same thing starting a couple days ago... But even so, that's only an approximately 55% of users TODAY... What about back in 2006? You know, when this was happening:
You know, I said most, I was wrong, I guess it's really only just a little more then half... Damn, so far less then I thought... Oh well. This game was made all the way back then to be playable on a wide range of systems including what would be considered underpowered even for back then. 55% today still wouldn't get Sins converted over because of the 45% who can't take advantage of it. Huge difference between the two companies right there. Also, why would anyone give a shit about a survey taken last month at the tail end of 2011 while they're hard at work busy building a game for as many people as possible to enjoy back in 2006? Seriously, if anyone knows for certain what is going to happen 6 years from now, all I want from that person are 6 little numbers I can enter into the state lottery, or the names of a few horses I can bet on at the tracks, or the final score of Super Bowl LII (that's 52 for those that don't know Roman Numerals). That's it. Just one of those so I can put my money in now and make a truck load on it later and we can all be off on our own happy little ways. I promise to everyone right here, right now that I will abandon these forums in a heartbeat and never look back if I'm given that information and it pans out... That is assuming these forums are even still here, I mean, 6 years is a long time for lots of things to happen. Oh right, not possible, because for all we know, in 6 years, 128bit computing could be in the middle of making 64bit computing its bitch. How would Skyrim compare to a game that is made to take advantage of that? Probably not well.
Yeah, lag, about that. Ask the ICO players how much they like lag, hell ask anyone how much they like the late game frame rate drop off and general slowness because the CPU is so over burdened with everything going on... Let's just do this thing that can slow the game down even more in a different way. I'm pretty sure you've just made yourself into an enemy of the state here by recommending something that you openly admit will bring us all more suffering. =P
That's not really an issue. It was before, but like I said...
We have room, but there are limits. Just like in every other game. There are always limits to what can be done, and several mods out there have done A LOT. Try a few of them. You won't be disappointed.
I laugh at you for actually thinking this is some sort of an accomplishment. LAA has been brought up dozens of times before, people (Some still in basic programming classes in college) have passed around programs that will enable it for the casual user with no experience right here in these very forums, as well as the occasional post of a how-to instruction for doing it yourself, just for Sins... This was all YEARS ago! If Bethseda was all bad ass and on top of their game like you want to think they are, how come they didn't learn from Supreme Commander and just do all of that in the first place, rather then release it without it and have to do it while releasing a couple of patches over multiple platforms to make it all happen? I mean, THQ isn't exactly a slouch outfit that has no industry recognition. And again, we're talking about a game designed fairly recently with every intent on not only taking advantage of current technology, but also making the game pretty much out of reach for those with older technology, which again was the opposite of Sins during creation... Do you get why I can sit here laughing at you for saying the things you're saying? I mean, honestly, I'm not being a dick or anything, but it's just a ridiculous comparison and I've had one hell of a good laugh through it all. Karma for you.
I may not know everything about it, but I certainly know more about it and how it relates to Sins then the random poster who comes here after playing some other game touting it as a great thing. It's not. If it was, it would have been done years ago by everyone industry wide once 64bit OSes started appearing. I mean, it's a simple flag in the header after all. Select it, recompile, release, done. It's absurdly simple. The fact that it isn't happening except on a case by case basis speaks volumes. Those that know better then us don't do it.
/TLDR
For those of you thinking about doing this on your own, I will again add in the disclaimer that the proponents typically fail to present you with:
And you lose tech support for all future problems with it, and it's illegal. Just saying. Have a nice day.
Don't worry, Teun... it's quiet now. We'll be okay.
The LAA strikes again!!!
Have no fear citizens Stant is here again to save us!
This thread has been thoroughly NUKED!!!!!!
I don't know too much about the specifics of how the engine and such works, but there are a couple of things I'd like to point out:
"Do remember that the engine being used was designed and created well before 2008. Just because in 2011/2012 most everybody has 4gb of RAM or more has no bearing on the fact that in 2005/2006 most everybody didn't."
Yet they are doing a graphics update in Rebellion. Back then the graphics update wouldn't have mattered, yet they are doing one. They are updating the game, so why should it not be added in to the game itself?
Also, not understanding a lot here, but why would it screw up multiplayer? I don't see why it should.
I also understand that vanilla Sins doesn't necessarily need more RAM allocated, but modded Sins could seemingly have a lot more if it was added. Vanilla Skyrim I had no problem with the 2Gb limit. I installed one texture mod (Albeit a large one) and the game crashed the second it loaded. Put on 4Gb Skyrim mod, it ran perfectly.
Not being a texture artist myself, I don't have much idea of what sort of limits the 2Gb limit imposes. A graphics update is coming, but it appears to only be a shader suite or something, whilst I think the textures could do with a little work now, more detail on the ships for when you zoom in.
Also, I had seen the distant stars mod, and I went to the site or W/E but other than saying that there was a dynamic movement mod in it, it didn't say which version for or anything of that sort. I read a number of the changelogs, and found nothing to do with it in Diplomacy so I had assumed it was not compatible for that. I'll try it out a bit later, though there are some features I'll probably find don't fit for me. If you could do a dynamic movement mod for the vanilla game, that would be awesome. Thanks.
The site is not completely up to date, sad to say. Visit the thread for the most comprehensive material and a means to ask questions.
There was a big debate about multi-threading etc. But really Im no technician and don't really care about the ins and outs of something like that. But what I do know is I can play supreme commander at full tilt for hours with no issues, I can play C&C series with no lag, I can play company of heros with no lag issues either.
It is not a new thing for RTS's to play at a constant level for hours, so I don't really see why this game should be any different.
Also as a consumer I don't think I'm asking to much to be able to run the game with full graphics and have no lag, just like I do with other games of hte same genre.
UBER NECRO FROM HELL!!!
guys you have caused me great discomfort by reviving this thread. Someone who tells me multi-core threaded game developtment has no benefits should be eating my ass with great delicious satisfaction.
Be careful what you wish for...
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