Rallying call for all interested: Colonisation of the Moon mod!

[12monkeys]

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.

I think there is a big difference between "repairing" and "constructing" something. To repair smthg you need spare parts and the knowlegde how to build them in.
The Von Neuman concept means, that robots reprocudes themselves by building up production facilities which produces other robots. For that kind of reproduction you need way more hardware, knowledge, ressources and a certain level of specialism. Just to know, how a silicon chip is constructed and to have a lot of silicium, makes you not able to produce a chip.
There is no reason why this failed robotic colony needs to have that attributes. Following scenario :
This robotic colony has been sent to the moon to prepare the arrival of the colonists. It has an AI which ensures an certain amount of autonomy and a certain amount of units for building up some base buildings and units. The inital design of the whole colony was dependant from supply deliveries from earth which constist of ressources you can't find at the moon and spare parts. The contact was lost due to any reason. The AI switches from standard mode to self-preservation mode. Because its main demands are spare parts and basic ressources, it sends out its units to look for them. To prevent complete drowning, those untis switched off to sleep mode one by one.
Then the colonists arrives. From time to time a colonist meets such a unit and the unit wakes up because its detecting electric fields or movement or heat or whatever. The unit interprets the colonists as a possible source of spare parts and basic ressources. It tries to contact the failed colony AI, but its not possbile because of broken comunication devices of the AI. That makes the unit takes an own decision and it attacks the colonists to get the spare parts and basic ressources -> e voilá : you have a background for a conflict.
You can even spread this to the mother AI of the failed colony: The player who finds the mother AI (there could be more: one for each Space Agency) gains a special amount of ressources or units or whatever.

Just as an indea.

 

[Belizan]

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.

Matt, I debug this stuff all the time. That's not the way Python errors behave. You can lose your interface layer, but the engine doesn't CTD. :/. And why would it never happen to me when I was playing without the new XML, but happen consistantly with the new XML? None of that makes any sense.

 

[GeoModder]

Guess I can agree to disagree.

 

[woodelf]

Sort of like V-ger from the first Star Trek movie....

 

[matthewv]

Matt, I debug this stuff all the time. That's not the way Python errors behave. You can lose your interface layer, but the engine doesn't CTD. :/. And why would it never happen to me when I was playing without the new XML, but happen consistantly with the new XML? None of that makes any sense.

Thats what I originaly thought as well but my debugging test results prove otherwise. These CTDs don't make sense to me either but that what happens.


Maybe I should tell you guys the details of the bizzare story of the CTD bug in the version 0.1 alpha release:
Remeber how the score was over 5000 in the begining of the game? Remember when you moused over your score in the in the bottom left corner the game CTD?
It turned out that both of these were caused by the same thing. If I set the terrain Maria Basalt food yeild to 0 you would get the problems listed above but when you set the food yeild to 1 the game worked fine. Now thats what I call bizarre. I played around with that bug for hours and the more I looked into it the more bizarre it seemed.

If you had gone through looking at a bug like that you will see why I must go beyond what is reasonable and makes sense.

And why would it never happen to me when I was playing without the new XML, but happen consistantly with the new XML

last night I was playing with the new XML for hours and did not have one CTD. thus the fact that it did not crash with the old XML for you proves nothing.

 

[The Great Apple]

Matt, I debug this stuff all the time. That's not the way Python errors behave. You can lose your interface layer, but the engine doesn't CTD. :/. And why would it never happen to me when I was playing without the new XML, but happen consistantly with the new XML? None of that makes any sense.

It's sooo annoying when the interface disappears!

I've hit python CTD's once or twice when I accidently put in infinite loops (onUnitKilled which kills a unit etc). They show up in the debug log though.

I don't think I've ever had a python crash which didn't show in one of the three logs.

 

[GeoModder]

One debuglog coming up.

 

[woodelf]

I'm 15% done downloading!

 

[matthewv]

One debuglog coming up.

Thank you, did it CTD when your ended you turn or in the middle of your turn?

 

[GeoModder]

Middle of the turn, when I followed up on a popup for civic changing.

And small wonder the game crashes on turn 24 if the player has no colony. The first "delivery" arrives then.

 

[matthewv]

Middle of the turn, when I followed up on a popup for civic changing.

Thanks, this really helps out alot.

 

[GeoModder]

Wow, speaking about lurking.

 

[woodelf]

Now I don't feel bad about stalking people's posts!

 

[matthewv]

And small wonder the game crashes on turn 24 if the player has no colony. The first "delivery" arrives then.

That one was easy to figure out.

The current bug in question is not. I just ruled out any sources for the bug that I can think of(thats bad news as it leaves me completely stumped at what to do next) Don't bother posting any more debug log files as it likely won't shed any new light ont the bug in question.(unless there are multiple bugs left causing CTD)

 

[matthewv]

Wow, speaking about lurking.

I just got home from school then

 

[Belizan]

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.

I'm not disagreeing. I have never liked hte idea of barbarians on the moon, and yet it is a feature which several people have been very fond of. The question, therein, was if we were going to put barbarians on the moon, what shape would they take. And that's where this discussion starts from. Under any circumstance, they would be turn on/off able from a map option.

 

[Belizan]

last night I was playing with the new XML for hours and did not have one CTD. thus the fact that it did not crash with the old XML for you proves nothing.

Well, I'm talking about over a dozen hours and 100s of turns of not crashing, alt-tabbing in and out, etc. etc. During the same period I'll get well voer a dozen CTDs with the bugged version. That seems pretty deterministic to me.

So in your version that hasn't crashed for hours, what have you changed, exactly?

 

[Belizan]

I think there is a big difference between "repairing" and "constructing" something. To repair smthg you need spare parts and the knowlegde how to build them in.
The Von Neuman concept means, that robots reprocudes themselves by building up production facilities which produces other robots. For that kind of reproduction you need way more hardware, knowledge, ressources and a certain level of specialism. Just to know, how a silicon chip is constructed and to have a lot of silicium, makes you not able to produce a chip.
There is no reason why this failed robotic colony needs to have that attributes. Following scenario :
This robotic colony has been sent to the moon to prepare the arrival of the colonists. It has an AI which ensures an certain amount of autonomy and a certain amount of units for building up some base buildings and units. The inital design of the whole colony was dependant from supply deliveries from earth which constist of ressources you can't find at the moon and spare parts. The contact was lost due to any reason. The AI switches from standard mode to self-preservation mode. Because its main demands are spare parts and basic ressources, it sends out its units to look for them. To prevent complete drowning, those untis switched off to sleep mode one by one.
Then the colonists arrives. From time to time a colonist meets such a unit and the unit wakes up because its detecting electric fields or movement or heat or whatever. The unit interprets the colonists as a possible source of spare parts and basic ressources. It tries to contact the failed colony AI, but its not possbile because of broken comunication devices of the AI. That makes the unit takes an own decision and it attacks the colonists to get the spare parts and basic ressources -> e voilá : you have a background for a conflict.
You can even spread this to the mother AI of the failed colony: The player who finds the mother AI (there could be more: one for each Space Agency) gains a special amount of ressources or units or whatever.

Just as an indea.

Yeah, that's pretty cool too 8)

 

[woodelf]

I figured this thread deserves my 3000th post!

That is all.

Well, maybe not. I like the ideas of self-aware robotic barbarians, but not for the Moon I guess. Maybe in another mod or if this mod takes a different direction. Or if Dual makes my cyborg unit request....

 

[matthewv]

Okay, I'm up at 3:00 AM becuase I can't sleep because this bug is driving me crazy. My current gut reaction tells me its related to civics and since I never really touched civics, I have difficulty getting the game to crash. I am at the situation where I am pulling strings out of nowhere as I am completely stumped as this bug seems so random its crazy.

I'm really at a disadvantage here since I do not know what all was changed that could have caused the bug or when the bug was introduced since I was not tracking this mod closely. Right now I feel Belizan has alot better chance at finding this bug since he has a much better idea of all this.(So belizan can you plz look into this bug more, even though it seems it caused by xml bug and you seem to hate touching the xml. I am starting to beg here)