Author Topic: Post-game Stats  (Read 1916 times)

Offline dm-horus

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Post-game Stats
« on: February 05, 2007, 10:00:21 PM »
Hacker, is there any way of adding additional information to post-game stats? It would be useful to list the total amount of ore, power, food, workers, scientists, children, level of tech, ore types, etc. Maybe even some sort of graph or chart that lists the info or compares it to other players game stats for multiplayer games? is this too far beyond what op2 is capable of?

Offline Hooman

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Post-game Stats
« Reply #1 on: February 06, 2007, 12:53:23 AM »
I see two problems. The first is that the game doesn't keep track of all the data you'd need. I assume you mean total ore harvested as opposed to how much they have on hand when it's over? And if you want to display a graph, don't most game graphs require some sort of history to those values? In which case you'd have to set aside memory to hold these values, hook at least one, and possibly a few code locations to get the history/running total to update correctly. Not completely unreasonable, but not exactly trivial either. It certainly begs the question as to whether it's worth it or not.

The next issue is then to actually display the data. That also strikes me as a somewhat nontrivial task. Maybe the code was written flexibly enough that it shouldn't require too much patching, but then you'd still have to figure the code out before you'd even know. Hacker might already know how to do this, but I sort of doubt he'd have really bothered to spend much time looking into the details of post game stat display without a good reason. So yeah, this second part is also probably a substantial time investment.


My advice for when simple nice changes like this require so much patching, and the source code is not available, is to start considering rewriting the whole game. Well, not for this patch alone, but for this and the many other patches for fairly simple things like this that actually require substantial effort to change.
 

Offline dm-horus

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« Reply #2 on: February 06, 2007, 12:14:13 PM »
Im sure it would be a ton of work and probably preventively complicated at least in the case of op2. Would it be possible to have another app running in the background that logs game data without having to run within op2? It would be useful for tournaments and etc. Im noticing times when users want specific data like who is producing the fastest, who mines the most, who makes the most ore with the least number of smelters or cargo trucks, how many smelters per mine, the combat effectiveness and longevity of vehicles, etc. I do think these are interesting and useful things to know especially for the people who have played op2 so much that theres really no interest other than efficiency.

Offline Hooman

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« Reply #3 on: February 06, 2007, 05:28:45 PM »
Well, if the display is a seperate app, then that illiminates one of the problems above. You'd still need a way of intercepting the data though, which would probably require code hooks. Things like ore accumulated, you might need to hook into where the ore is increased, and update your data. Repeatedly scanning memory would be easier, but also error prone since timing delays, especially those associated with task switching means the value could be incremented and/or decremented many times before you're able to measure again.

And yes, those sorts of stats are very nice to know.

You can always try and asbtract out the model a bit and analyse it in a pure theoretical mathematical model. It might be a simplification, and so not entirely accurate, but it could probably be very close to the actual truth.
 

Offline Leviathan

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« Reply #4 on: February 07, 2007, 07:20:36 AM »
It would indeed be nice to have more data saved and displayed at the end :)

Offline Highlander

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« Reply #5 on: February 07, 2007, 08:32:52 AM »
I don't really see the point in this. Sure it would look nice, but it doesn't really add anything. (Only place this could come in handy is in Midas and that other resource thing, but since nobody play those anyways..)

And if it is like Hooman says, time consuming, I think other projects would be better to start working on or finish..
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Offline dm-horus

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« Reply #6 on: February 07, 2007, 02:48:11 PM »
This is very true highlander, but I am hearing more and more need for such a report. As we continue to play op2 and become more adept the only challenge remaining is to see who can be most efficient in more than one area. People want to know the RATE at which they mine ore, produce vehicles and get colonists not just the final numbers at the end of the game. Having a graph would show when they were the strongest and how to adjust their game accordingly. It would be a pain to implement but I think alot of people would really find this data useful. It certainly wouldnt be necessary for everyone or every game but it would have its place with the older players or even tournaments.