Rallying call for all interested: Colonisation of the Moon mod!
- Thread starter JBG
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I will build a new XML editor before I do that, Woodelf 8).
Has anyone tried Matt's new files? Or did he not change anything? Worse comes to worse we can start from our last good set of XML files and slowly add in changes. I'm really very unhappy by how difficult this bug has been to reason out. It makes it seem like modding xml is voodoo, which makes making a lot of changes seem hopeless. I know that can't be the case, but, until we can find what the problem is...
Matt did you validate all the art defines being used (and button settings)? What have you already checked? Could it be one of our new models causing the problem?
Has anyone tried Matt's new files? Or did he not change anything? Worse comes to worse we can start from our last good set of XML files and slowly add in changes. I'm really very unhappy by how difficult this bug has been to reason out. It makes it seem like modding xml is voodoo, which makes making a lot of changes seem hopeless. I know that can't be the case, but, until we can find what the problem is...
Matt did you validate all the art defines being used (and button settings)? What have you already checked? Could it be one of our new models causing the problem?
Belizan said:
Adding stuff from the beginning would take about 50 years to figure out sadly.
How do you claim something bugfree when the bug crops up so infrequently? Just because you don't crash in X number of playtests proves nothing here. I honestly can't see an easy way to prove it's clean even after no one crashes for a day, a week, or a year. The fact that it does is our only proof it exists! UGH!GeoModder said:
No, they were misentered in the xml, which I fixed if only my fixes worked.
BTW, I have been continuing to go over stuff with Warsong, and I have to say things are shaping up quite well. I had a lot of ideas I really liked but no framework to put them in. His vision seems to be growing robustly as he explores our ideas and his own and reads up on related issues (I assume he's reading up on them, either that or he's just thinking out each aspect).
I mentioned to him the Fisheries and Hatcheries idea, he countered with a bit about Guinea pigs and birds like swallows over chickens. He wanted to know if you all had any links to the related research about fish and chickens and low-g?
We are currently debating over the representation of water. We've gone through about 3 different methods thus far. What we are currently thinking is that water is like.. goodies from a goody hut. When you "capture" some water, you get a water resource unit, which you can take back to one of your cities. Once in a city what you can convert it to depends on what techs you have and what you've built. For instance, if you are high tech, you can add it to you Aquifer (sp?) which will grant you permanently a bunch of health. At low tech you can mass drive it into Lower Earth orbit for gold (sell it). He has some other options available at various points (build a Hydroponics improvement, maybe? -- This may just be me clinging to an older model 8). Anyhow...
So, a thought to make JBG twist and turn in his grave. I mentioned to him that there was a lot of popular sentiment for barbarians on the moon, and how we might justify that. He suggested if we really wanted to do that, the easiest would be the "Failed Robotic Colony" option. Before the various factions came to the moon to settle, there was an attempt to colonize the moon using remotely controlled automated robots. Classic Sci-fi predictability, the AI in charge of coordinating the robots downloaded itself onto the moon and severed connections to the Earth. Starting players would know where some of their cities were, and so on. It's a little silly, but it *does* get us barbarians
.I like robots! We need a model though and so far my begging for that has fallen on deaf ears. I have tried to get a cyborg built.... I guess robots could be vehicular as well.
The water idea works I think. Can you code it up so a water resource can be consumed by an improvement? So if you find water it's treated like gold and...
Holy crap! Why aren't we using water as our currency? Isn't that the most valuable commodity to trade in? Then we could spend water on improvement....wreckage could yield water! Any good?
The water idea works I think. Can you code it up so a water resource can be consumed by an improvement? So if you find water it's treated like gold and...
Holy crap! Why aren't we using water as our currency? Isn't that the most valuable commodity to trade in? Then we could spend water on improvement....wreckage could yield water! Any good?
Yes it does. Why would we want gold for anything we ship back? Gold can't be eaten or consumed. I think before Isolation we would be trading our stuff for food/water. After that water would be even more important. Finding water would be a joyous event. Does popping wreckage and finding gold do anything for you? NO! Bah.
Because gold is easy to transport and is what they like on Earth. Beside, it's not really *gold* is it? It's currency. credit.. cash.. bank accounts and credit lines. Virtual money, at least in the case of dealing with the Earth.
I wonder if we should zero out or near to zero out everyone's accounts when Earth Contact is lost... Hmmm...
I wonder if we should zero out or near to zero out everyone's accounts when Earth Contact is lost... Hmmm...
GeoModder
Deity
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Belizan said:
So, you will keep them in?
Belizan said:
It's just something I readed in a comic. But for justification on fish (and seelife in general), gravity doesn't effect them since they're immersed in water. So I gather the fish won't feel anything different.
Belizan said:So, a thought to make JBG twist and turn in his grave. I mentioned to him that there was a lot of popular sentiment for barbarians on the moon, and how we might justify that. He suggested if we really wanted to do that, the easiest would be the "Failed Robotic Colony" option. Before the various factions came to the moon to settle, there was an attempt to colonize the moon using remotely controlled automated robots. Classic Sci-fi predictability, the AI in charge of coordinating the robots downloaded itself onto the moon and severed connections to the Earth. Starting players would know where some of their cities were, and so on. It's a little silly, but it *does* get us barbarians
Doesn't catch with me. Such a "failed" colony would have become a Von Neuman machine, and being in the process of depleting the readily available resources before humans can even make worthwhile colonies.
matthewv
Emperor
Trust me it does. I tried and tested it. You can test it yourself if you don't believe me. I think the other CTD bugs are of the same sort as that one.
All the art defines are fine.
Thats not difficult. The only problem is I got so many other things do do it willl take me a while to do everything. Especially if I end up spending all my time debugging.
Can you guys plz play the debug version of the mod I posted last night. I need though debuglog.txt files to help home in on the bug.
12monkeys
Prince
GeoModder said:
Actually importing a database and had some time to pop in here. Those failed robots would not become Von Neumanns. Von Neumanns are (by definition) self reproducing machines. But your "robarians" mustn't be self reproducing, they just need to be apostate for any reason (e.g. due to a failing radiation shield they got to much cosmic radiation, which mixes up their CPUs or whatever). That could be a more or less realistic background for your robarians. That means, you can randomly place them somewhere attacking everything they encounter.
As an alternative, it could be any party from earth which tries to take foot at the moon by dropping smaller amounts of command units disturbing the existing moon colonists. Not sure if that matches your current story background, causeI havn't read everxthing here.
GeoModder
Deity
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Doesn't make sense, 12monkeys. Firstly, those robots were sent to the moon and if they couldn't repair themself, nobody would. Secondly, if something can repair itself, it can construct a copy as well. Thirdly, there's a coordinating AI involved. Which should have all the necessary skills to manage the whole operation, including databases on all it must coordinate.
Sounds Neuman enough to me.
Sounds Neuman enough to me.
Interesting thoughts. If the robots were large pieces of equipment I can see the havoc they could cause running through your colony. The Lancer units would be a huge benefit to disabling them.
If they aren't self-aware then they can't fit themselves with equipment or weapons so that's comforting.
If they aren't self-aware then they can't fit themselves with equipment or weapons so that's comforting.
Holistic
wrapped in plastic
In vanilla, other than offering a challenge in the exploration-phase and target practise, the main function of Barbarians is to curb expansion. This makes little "logical" sense in the early gameplay of this mod, because Colonists can't be built.
Barbarians should therefore IMO be replaced by something that specifically makes exploration difficult. This would not include robots gone haywire, but say, random events like meteorites, intense cosmic radiation, malfunctioning equipment, or whatever. Exploring units would get XP if they survive the "event" (which of course gameplaywise could be represented by a "unit").
And yes, three days late and all, but I can take a look at the civics, but judging from the Moon Bible it seems it was one of the core parts of JBG's intentions, so I'm loth to make any changes.
Barbarians should therefore IMO be replaced by something that specifically makes exploration difficult. This would not include robots gone haywire, but say, random events like meteorites, intense cosmic radiation, malfunctioning equipment, or whatever. Exploring units would get XP if they survive the "event" (which of course gameplaywise could be represented by a "unit").
And yes, three days late and all, but I can take a look at the civics, but judging from the Moon Bible it seems it was one of the core parts of JBG's intentions, so I'm loth to make any changes.
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