Outpost Universe Forums

Outpost Series Games => Outpost 2 Divided Destiny => Topic started by: EnderA on November 12, 2008, 05:05:10 PM

Title: Population Challenge Bug
Post by: EnderA on November 12, 2008, 05:05:10 PM
Apparently if you complete the starship on the Population challenge, you fail. My best guess would be that when the colonists leave through the colonist module, you go down to 0 population and then lose.
Title: Population Challenge Bug
Post by: Sirbomber on November 12, 2008, 05:06:01 PM
Uh, yeah... But that's not a bug.
Title: Population Challenge Bug
Post by: EnderA on November 12, 2008, 05:12:35 PM
It's at the very least counter-intuitive. I didn't think that by completing the starship I would lose.
Title: Population Challenge Bug
Post by: Sirbomber on November 12, 2008, 05:30:55 PM
Your goal is not to build the starship.  It is to grow your population to the required number of people.  It's Dynamix's way of saying, "Learn to follow directions!" to us.
Title: Population Challenge Bug
Post by: EnderA on November 12, 2008, 10:51:26 PM
Quote
Your goal is not to build the starship.  It is to grow your population to the required number of people.  It's Dynamix's way of saying, "Learn to follow directions!" to us.
Lol, yeah, I know. I was just curious what would happen when I finished the starship. I was very surprised that it resulted in my failure. I would expect the game to ignore it over ending the mission in defeat. I'm puzzled that it then lets you research/build the starship components. It wouldn't be all that hard to disable them - they disable various research in the campaigns.
Title: Population Challenge Bug
Post by: Hooman on November 13, 2008, 12:59:21 AM
It only fails you because of lack of colonists left on the planet. You can successfully launch a starship and not fail, provided you still have enough people left to run the colony after those 200 people on the starship leave.

I believe one reason why they didn't disable the starship components, is because the game design doesn't allow the level maker to disable a specific subtree like that. It only lets them disable technology levels. The starship components are not all seperated out into distinct levels, and so they can't be disabled without disabling other techs too. There is also no real way to rewrite the tech files to do this without changing gameplay either, since some non-starship related techs are only available at higher tech levels, after some of the initial starship components can be built.

Basically, there's not enough flexibility to do this without modifications to the game engine, or supplying extra tech files with the starship components removed.

Kind of makes you wonder why they didn't just supply extra tech files. Or, since the tech levels are only really used in the campaign levels, you could have pretty much done away with keeping the tech levels in multitek.txt the same as the campaign missions. Although, that could have been a pain to rewrite.
 
Title: Population Challenge Bug
Post by: EnderA on November 13, 2008, 02:46:29 PM
Quote
It only fails you because of lack of colonists left on the planet. You can successfully launch a starship and not fail, provided you still have enough people left to run the colony after those 200 people on the starship leave.
Nah, it fails you even if you have 590 colonists left. I kept my population down below 600 - the population that causes victory on medium - by maliciously destroying my own buildings simply to see what would happen if I succeeded in sending off the starship. Fortunately I saved the game before I attempted this, so I didn't lose all my work.
Title: Population Challenge Bug
Post by: Sirbomber on November 13, 2008, 03:23:28 PM
Maybe you ran out of scientists...  The starship does take a lot of 'em.

Personally, I don't see what the problem is...
Title: Population Challenge Bug
Post by: CK9 on November 13, 2008, 03:28:34 PM
/me seconds sirbomber's assertion

no scientists = no CC, no Nursery, and no University.  Which leads to DEAD!
Title: Population Challenge Bug
Post by: EnderA on November 13, 2008, 04:04:47 PM
Ahah! Yes, that's why. It takes 80 Scientists, 40 Workers, and 80 Children.
Title: Population Challenge Bug
Post by: Nynx on November 13, 2008, 10:07:53 PM
ok, so that's 200 colonists total out of 590

that leaves 390 people left, out of those people you should still be able to survive if you had kept up scientists and babies, workers are no problem and would be the bulk of that 390.

I think they just got lazy and didnt take it out, in-game, you colony would be crippled shortly but you'd regain the numbers soon enough.  
Title: Population Challenge Bug
Post by: Sirbomber on November 14, 2008, 06:18:31 AM
Not if you run out of scientists...
I mean, who has 80 scientists lying around?!
More, actually.  You'd probably want to have at least 100 Scientists to be safe.
Title: Population Challenge Bug
Post by: CK9 on November 14, 2008, 09:54:04 AM
THe problem with having a large number of scientists: what do you do with them once you've done ALL the research?  Haveing them fill in as workers brings morale down.
Title: Population Challenge Bug
Post by: Sirbomber on November 14, 2008, 02:07:45 PM
Spam Med Centers, Spaceports, and Observatories.
And DIRTs, if you want.
Title: Population Challenge Bug
Post by: EnderA on November 14, 2008, 06:00:12 PM
Quote
ok, so that's 200 colonists total out of 590

that leaves 390 people left, out of those people you should still be able to survive if you had kept up scientists and babies, workers are no problem and would be the bulk of that 390.

I think they just got lazy and didnt take it out, in-game, you colony would be crippled shortly but you'd regain the numbers soon enough.
Quote
Not if you run out of scientists...
I mean, who has 80 scientists lying around?!
More, actually. You'd probably want to have at least 100 Scientists to be safe.

To clarify, I did in fact build 6 Universities to quickly train all the way up to around 140 scientists, then launched the colony ship, and tracked how many it took from each of children, workers, and scientists. As I said it takes 80 Children, 40 Workers, 80 Scientists, which left me with the ~390 people and enough scientists and workers to live.

Quote
THe problem with having a large number of scientists: what do you do with them once you've done ALL the research? Haveing them fill in as workers brings morale down.
Quote
Spam Med Centers, Spaceports, and Observatories.
And DIRTs, if you want.

Especially spam Universities. They take 2 Scientists and no workers. Although, when you have so many people and no research left, morale doesn't matter much. What's going to happen? Not as many children born? Research takes longer?
Title: Population Challenge Bug
Post by: CK9 on November 16, 2008, 01:31:24 PM
people die off faster with low moral, production slows down, etc.
Title: Population Challenge Bug
Post by: Savant 231-A on November 16, 2008, 01:50:59 PM
Quote
people die off faster with low moral, production slows down, etc.
and people have less se- i mean less babies.
Title: Population Challenge Bug
Post by: Sirbomber on November 16, 2008, 03:32:44 PM
Quote
and people have less se-
They don't anyways.  Cloning, remember?
Title: Population Challenge Bug
Post by: Savant 231-A on November 17, 2008, 08:13:26 AM
Quote
Quote
and people have less se-
They don't anyways.  Cloning, remember?
metaphor  ;)  
Title: Population Challenge Bug
Post by: CK9 on November 17, 2008, 09:46:47 AM
actually, bomber, if you read the novelas, you learn that some of the colonists PREFER to do it the old fashion way ;)
Title: Population Challenge Bug
Post by: Sirbomber on November 17, 2008, 07:06:22 PM
Indeed, but I was making a point.
Don't question how much I know about the knovella.
Title: Population Challenge Bug
Post by: CK9 on December 05, 2008, 10:54:21 AM
lol, you punning around now?
Title: Population Challenge Bug
Post by: Sirbomber on December 05, 2008, 11:40:43 AM
Darned straight!
Title: Population Challenge Bug
Post by: CK9 on December 07, 2008, 03:12:56 AM
*insert clever joke that infers something here*