Author Topic: Population Challenge Bug (Read 3364 times)

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.

Sirbomber · « **Reply #1 on:** November 12, 2008, 05:06:01 PM »

Uh, yeah... But that's not a bug.

EnderA · « **Reply #2 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.

Sirbomber · « **Reply #3 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.

EnderA · « **Reply #4 on:** November 12, 2008, 10:51:26 PM »

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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.

Hooman · « **Reply #5 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.

EnderA · « **Reply #6 on:** November 13, 2008, 02:46:29 PM »

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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.

Sirbomber · « **Reply #7 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...

CK9 · « **Reply #8 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!

EnderA · « **Reply #9 on:** November 13, 2008, 04:04:47 PM »

Ahah! Yes, that's why. It takes 80 Scientists, 40 Workers, and 80 Children.

Nynx · « **Reply #10 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.

Sirbomber · « **Reply #11 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.

CK9 · « **Reply #12 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.

Sirbomber · « **Reply #13 on:** November 14, 2008, 02:07:45 PM »

Spam Med Centers, Spaceports, and Observatories.
And DIRTs, if you want.

EnderA · « **Reply #14 on:** November 14, 2008, 06:00:12 PM »

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

CK9 · « **Reply #15 on:** November 16, 2008, 01:31:24 PM »

people die off faster with low moral, production slows down, etc.

Savant 231-A · « **Reply #16 on:** November 16, 2008, 01:50:59 PM »

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people die off faster with low moral, production slows down, etc.

and people have less se- i mean less babies.

Sirbomber · « **Reply #17 on:** November 16, 2008, 03:32:44 PM »

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and people have less se-

They don't anyways. Cloning, remember?

Savant 231-A · « **Reply #18 on:** November 17, 2008, 08:13:26 AM »

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and people have less se-
They don't anyways. Cloning, remember?

metaphor

CK9 · « **Reply #19 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

Sirbomber · « **Reply #20 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.

CK9 · « **Reply #21 on:** December 05, 2008, 10:54:21 AM »

lol, you punning around now?

Sirbomber · « **Reply #22 on:** December 05, 2008, 11:40:43 AM »

Darned straight!

CK9 · « **Reply #23 on:** December 07, 2008, 03:12:56 AM »

*insert clever joke that infers something here*

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Author Topic: Population Challenge Bug (Read 3364 times)