Fixing the two major bugs in MOO3

[Sovereign]

Hi all,

I've decided to try to nail down the two major bugs, and see if I can find a way to fix it, considering there's no chance for a 2nd patch for MOO3.

The 2 major bugs are:

1. Game Slow-Down Bug

2. Tech Lock-Up Bug


I started a game to do a trial and error run with different possible solutions.

For the Game Slow-Down Bug, I did some serious thinking and analysis of my old games, and I think I found the real reason why the game slows down dramatically at one specific screen.

The game slows down dramatically at the Ground Combat screen, and I know it can't be taking the computer forever to calculate simple formulae and population growth, etc.

If it was population, DEA, ships, etc. then I would have the slow-down by turn 200 or 300 when I have 100 or 200 planets, about 1000 ships (both active and in reserves), etc.

So I come to the conclusion that it is the ground troops that is slowing the game down.

Think. By turn 400, a planet could have upwards of 100 - 200 troops and support personnel. Then multiply that by 200, 300, or 400 planets.

That comes up to the insane total of 20,000 to 40,000 ground troop units for the human player. With that many troops, it'll take the computer a long time to calculate the troops actions, such as suppress revolts and unrest, and figure out the upkeep costs, arrange them into armies (on-planet to combat unrest), etc.


So I've set a goal in this new game I'm playing... NO GROUND TROOPS BUILT AT ALL! I'm locking all my production querys for every planet I own, so when the AI builds the 3 items I choose, the query becomes blank, instead of building tons of troops.

Maybe that will cut down on the GROUND COMBAT screen length somewhat. I'm on turn 70'ish currently, but I'll know if this solution will work by the time I get to turn 300, 400, and so forth.


About the Tech Lock-Up Bug, I haven't encountered it yet in this game, but when I do, I'll put up my ideas and strategies to fix this in this thread.

Hopefully, if the solutions work, then MOO3 can be more enjoyable, not just for me, but for all of you as well!


Laters.

[Whoha]

Your ground troops analysis makes sense, I don't leave troops around and don't have to wait all that long. Still I think stormhound is correct where he says migration and econ stuff is probably also being done there.

Tech-lockup will only be solved by a patch, or a save editor, some people are working on that, but it will be a while. I've peered into the save file myself, and its pretty confusing at first glance in there.

[Sovereign]

I downloaded Bhruic's save editor but it doesn't address the tech thing. I like editing starlanes though. I think of it as bringing back the planned "Improve and Degradation" of starlanes originally planned for the game but never implemented.

I'll check the migration thing when I get to turns 300 or 400, if my theory proves to be correct with ground troops. If so, then I'll try to maxmize all my planets (absouletely max population, such as 54,990 / 55,000) and see if migration is a factor or not.

[Sovereign]

UPDATE...

My game is now on turn 161.

I have about 210 planets, give or take a couple.

I'm starting to notice the Ground Combat now takes 10 seconds to complete, compared to the 5 or 6 seconds at turn 100 and earlier.

I still have no ground troops at all. However, the enemy empires are nearing 70 - 80 planets each. There's 12 civilizations in the galaxy, counting me and New Orions.

The Ithkul got eliminated by turn 150

As I bombard the enemy planets, I notice their ground forces are in the 100's per planet. I remember my old games when some enemy planets had about 1000 ground forces, and Orion planets had like 2000 or 3000.

However, the big thing is.... compared to my old games, I had about 30 seconds of Ground Combat when I had 200 planets AND ground forces being built.

Now its down to 10 seconds without ground forces for me.

I'll have to test the economic thing, as I go to turn 300 or so, and fully maximize my 200'ish planets.

I will keep you guys updated.

[Sovereign]

Finally, I got to the mid-game.

I noticed a sigificant improvement on the turn waiting.

I compared my current game (now at turn 305) with my old games.

Right now, I have 295 planets with economies and populations almost at max. Still 0 ground troops.

I only have to wait about 30 - 45 seconds for the Ground Combat phase, hence the term "Turn Waiting" but this is a huge improvement over my old game with 400 planets by turn 350 WITH ground troops. In that old game, I had to wait 2 - 3 minutes at the Ground Combat phase.

So, not making, having, or maintaining ground troops sigificantly reduces the wait between turns by a good 50%-60%, or even more.

So, the economy plays the other sigificant factor (not migration since my planets are at max population).


Moving on....

I encountered the dreaded Tech Lock Up bug at turn 290 or 300. Now I'm in the process of trying different ways to solve this. Some of my methods I'm trying:

1. set research slider to 100% for one tech field
2. set imperial research grants to 0%
3. some modding (details below)

Modding: I deleted all the "bad events" in hopes that negative overruns won't excaberate the tech problem. Also, I tried to pump up the "good events" in hopes it'd give me the tech I'm researching in an instant (Events like Orion Artifcact, Child Genius, Tech Discovery, etc)

Now I'm trying a new game solely to solve the tech bug issue.

I did some additional modding. I tweaked the research formula. I changed the numbers in the spreadsheet from 86 something and 1.3 something exponent to....

15 something and 1.31 exponent.

I tested several games for a dozen turns or so each, and WOW!

I advance a tech level almost every turn, getting level 10 or 15 in all techs by turn 20 or 25!

But I encountered the lock up, but it happens in the low level techs (levels 1 - 10), but oddly, the high techs (level 10 - 30+) don't suffer the bug.

However, I didn't expand or colonize or explore at all. I kept mashing the TURN button. Maybe if I changed my numbers around a little, and I expand and play like normal, then the low level techs won't get locked up.

One other thing I modded... the Creativity trait. I deleted the positive and negative overrun bonuses from it.

It is my belief that the overruns have a direct influence on the tech lock up bugs. So I'm trying to either...

1. Get all techs early, such as level 50 techs by turn 200 to 300, not by turn 700+ to avoid the lock-ups

2. Reduce the amount of overruns, both positive and negative as much as possible.


Any ideas or suggestions, or any other approaches I haven't tried yet?

[CharlesBHoff]

The Tech lockup might be cause by haveing too many cooks cooking the soup. To many programmer working on than program can ruin it.

[bakalov]

I believe that there is no tech lock-up at all. Just the remaining turns are displayed incorrectly. You'll get the techs sooner or later. It may take a while because the latest techs sometimes need more than 20 turns to develop. Of course it is bad if all this time you are seeing "1 turn left" ....

[Whoha]

Yea, but its referred to as tech lockup so ill keep it named that. I know that its just an obscenely high value in some cases that is being displayed incorrectly (1100 turns if a guy on atari's board is to be believed in one case.)

[sabrewolf]

well, i'm just being lazy now

just recieved my package from amazon weth MoO3 in it and i'm looking forward to playing it (as C3C is nearly unplayable due to the 2-3 severe bugs).

is there any larger bugs (except the ones mentioned above) left in MoO3, which has to be fixed and a newb should know about?

otherwise, i'm really enjoying the manual. the history is slightly complicated in the beginning, using all those A generated B, B engineered C, D exiled from E, F cut off from B, merged together later, etc.... but it's a good bedtime story

[blubberbob]

I did some tests like Sovereign did, and Tech Stuck seems to be related to the "Percentage Per Turn" parameter in the "ResearchDefaults" section of Research.txt.

I changed the Research_Cost_Multiplier from 81.30081301 to 5, and the Research_Cost_Exponent_Base from 1.3xx to 1.

Now let it autorun for 50 turns, and you are at tech level 48/49/50, however, not a single tech has been finished except for some level 0 techs.

Now change the Percentage Per Turn parameter from 0.13 (default) to 0.49999. Same result

Now change it to 0.5 and voila: After 50 turns you are at level 48/49/50 and all techs have been research (except perhaps the last ones; press the turn button a few times and you have them as well. Not a single tech stuck. Same for values higher than 0.5

I also did a run where I set
- Percentage Per Turn to 0.49999
- Research_Cost_Multiplier at 5 (like the previous runs)
- Research_Cost_Exponent_Base to 1 for Economics, 1.05 for Energy, 1.10 for Biological Sciences etc.

This time only the Economics Techs were stuck, not the others. So it looks like a tech gets stuck at specific combinations of these three parameters.

These results were perfectly reproducible.

Now, I'm not sure if this behavior is the same as the Tech Stuck bug (assuming it is a bug...) but I want to do some further testing. There are probably more parameters involved, since the Tech Stuck problem as encountered during normal game-play seems to have some random behavior, which is not the case in the above tests.

Perhaps some of you could do, or propose, some tests?

[Destroyer]

You could remedy the "game slow down bug" quite easily.

Get rid of your crap computer.

I dont xperience slow down until around turn 600.

As for the tech one. I have played many games, and have not encountered this.

I would add that the biggest improvement could be made by having the ai understand how to consistantly sustain a war over a period of more that 2 turns.

I must have played a hundred games on impossible, and after the 1st 150 turns, the game is far too easy as the ai will randomly attack any planet once or twice, then gives up, and has no idea how to defend against an invasion.

[Whoha]

atleast its not doing like civ3 where it recalced the trading routes 10 or 20 times a turn...

[bakalov]

Destroyer, the tech bug appeared after the patch ... it is not so dangerous though.