User talk:Giszmo

In building status displays, instead of showing the total construction resources needed, it would be more helpful to show the remaining resources needed, because that is what the user needs to know to make plans. Currently, the user must do the subtraction in their mind to figure this out, which slows the user down.

sorry. that's perfectly ok with me. the overall status is drawn in the line under the site.

It would help if there were a bigger color distinction in the mini-map between unknown territory and wood. Right now it is hard to tell the difference between these two things in the mini-map, because the color for wood in the mini-map is quite dark.

also a zoomed mini map would help on bigger maps.

I can't see how to tell from statistics which portion of explorers have ground attack. Is there any way to do this?

It would be nice to be able to see during the game the graphs that are currently shown only when you quit. Of course, only the data for yourself should be available until someone has won.

• disagree* aou are controlling your city and are in the middle of it. all those stats about history are only interesting afterwards. maybe show game time to decide on switching strategies based on the experience when the first attack might occure.

> It would be nice to have a FPS (frames per second) indicator to help > in knowing how badly my computer is performing. (I would have liked > even more if 0.8.21 had had an FPS indicator, because I suspect there > was a big slowdown in 0.8.22 and it would help to know for sure.)

frame counter would be nice, too. i'm comparing unit allocation systems based on the end game match time that is very inaccurate.

> The message “Your explorers are under attack” is confusing when only > _one_ of my explorers is being attacked.

well... it is only because that happens early in the game. live with it.

> Second, images are used for the border of the dimmed areas so that the > dimming is gradual. These images need to be made more transparent. > This can be done by running the following script (using a program from > the ImageMagick version 6.2.4 package) in the data/gfx directory:

where should i put them? and how?

> The images used for some buildings make it hard to visualize the space > they occupy. For example, the hive image barely touches any of the > cells in the right row of the hive's location, and the level 2 > swimming pool image seems not to occupy any of the cells in the top > row of its location.

agreed

> When a hive is set to request 1 worker, the top of the hive's image > looks like a black circle just to the right of the single circle > indicating whether a worker is serving the hive. This has led me on > multiple occasions to mistakenly think the hive was set to request 2 > workers, and I made gameplay errors as a result. This could be > improved by making the hive image slightly less tall on the center > spike.

no problem here. i'd rather vote to make the hive taller to fit its area.

> The images for the level 2 and 3 defense towers are great, but the > image for the level 1 defense tower doesn't look to me like a “tower”. > It would be better if the image looked more like a “tower” to help > justify why it gives better vision around it.

school, market, racetrack, ... what gfx is ultimately good? if we get better we might take it. no need to hurry on the turrets.

> It would be better if a clearing flag attracted workers only when the > clearable resources inside the flag's area are reachable. (Probably a > gradient should be involved somehow.) Otherwise you get the situation > where some number of workers end up assigned to the flag doing > nothing. (Alternatively, it would be good to be warned of such > situations, so the player can do something to fix them.)

clearly the first solution is the better one. problem now is that even if the globs can reach the res but have to leave the flag circle they will not do the job.

> In glob2 0.8.22, I've seen workers swim long distances to fetch wheat > when closer wheat can be found by following the shoreline. The > workers also do not seem to take into account their swimming speed in > deciding which resource to fetch. Sometimes the workers will swim > when it would be faster to walk along the shore.

right. that's a problem due to the wave front algo. we now have 2 gradients. one for swimmers and one for non swimmers. this does not fit for all combinations of Level123 swimmers and walkers. so basically the algo gonsiders the glob to move as fast on land as on water.

> Putting a forbidden area on a cell after a worker has decided to > harvest it does not stop the worker. It would be better if this > stopped the worker. Often (usually near the beginning of games) I > discover a worker is about to harvest the last bit of a resource in an > area I would like to farm. In a panic, I try to stop the worker but > the worker ignores me.

minor change at a considerable effort (i guess). i agree it would be nice.

> In general, it is frustrating that there seems to be no way to get > warriors to break off contact with an enemy. It seems impossible to > get warriors to do many sensible things in battle. For example, the > unit paths might show that a warrior is serving a particular war flag. > However, the warrior refuses to leave battle with a particular enemy > warrior to serve the war flag. As another example, you could have 3 > warriors beating up on one enemy, which is more than enough, and 1 > warrior defending against 3, and it is impossible to get 2 of the 3 > to go help the 1. It is impossible to get warriors to retreat (both > flags and forbidden areas don't work), even though that would be much > better because then they could fight within range of your defense > towers. Etc.

that is desired bahaviour. warriors are to be far more defensive than offensive in order to enable the player to block onrushing warriors without having to build a double wall around the whole base. cheating by allieing with the opponent, walking through right to the inns and then switching back to hostile is a cheap win.

> It could be better if defense towers did not use their ammunition on > building sites. It is a big problem in my games against Nicowar that > defense towers prefer targeting building sites over enemy globules, > because Nicowar seems to like placing completely infeasible building > sites near enemy bases. > > ====================================================================== > Nicowar: > > ------------------------------ > Nicowar cheats! It places a war flag on the enemy's home location > despite not yet having actually found the enemy's home! It also marks > for farming only wood near enough to water, but does this accurately > even when it has not seen the water. Etc. I discovered this once I > learned how to combine an AI with a human player so I could watch what > the AI does. The best solution would probably be to make sure that > AIs simply do not have access to information like where the enemy's > home is or the full details of the map (including unknown parts), so > AI implementers will not be tempted to cheat. > > ------------------------------ > In 0.8.23, Nicowar (two different Nicowar enemies) put a barracks > construction site right next to my hive. This was at the very > beginning of the game when I only had 9 globules and the enemy hives > were on the other side of two lakes (although closer than usual). > This seems almost like cheating to me. Later in the same game, both > enemies (sometimes both at once!) kept putting hive construction sites > next to my base, very unfairly using up most of the ammunition from my > defense tower! > > ------------------------------ > Why is Nicowar called “Nicowar (unstable)” in 0.8.23 but called only > “Nicowar” in 0.8.22? What changed? > > ------------------------------ > Nicowar does poorly at keeping its attack paths open. Here is one > story. Nicowar was assaulting me. Fortunately, I had just asked for > walls which were partially completed, and I had a handful of level 2 > warriors. Nicowar's assault was relentless. At several points things > were close. I barely managed to hold Nicowar off as I gradually built > my defenses up (defense tower, more level 2 warriors, hospitals near > the wall, etc.). Suddenly, the assault stopped. Of course you know > the reason why: The wood and wheat overgrew the path of the attacking > warriors. It was good for me, but it sucked for Nicowar. The AIs > play extremely poorly on randomly generated maps, because they can't > keep their attack paths open. On this one I even fixed up the map in > advance by putting in a bunch of extra sand paths to help keep things > open, but it was not enough, because I didn't draw a sand path all the > way between the two starting locations. > > ------------------------------ > Sometimes Nicowar does try to clear a path to its enemy with clearing > flags, but there are many difficulties with how it does this. One > problem is that it requests too many workers. For example, it may > create 20 or so flags to dig a long path and it will set the number of > requested workers for each flag to 10. As a result, the flags do not > get a consistent number of workers. (This problem may have been made > worse by the bug in clearing flags in 0.8.22 that is supposed to be > fixed now. But it would still be a problem in any version due to the > poor handling by glob2 of overcommitment of workers.) As a result, > some parts of the path may not be kept open reliably, which can end up > with friendly forces trapped behind enemy lines. It would be better > if Nicowar would _also_ add clearing areas to the paths it digs to > ensure that they stay open. This would also help with the fact that > the paths are not properly dug out due to the way the circular regions > of the clearing flags leave certain cells uncovered. > > ------------------------------ > Nicowar does not ensure there is an open path to each of its > buildings. It only puts a clearing area of width one around each > building, but this is often not enough. > > ------------------------------ > Nicowar fails to ensure its wheat farms remain free of trees. > > ====================================================================== > the map generator and map editor: > > ------------------------------ > More map dimensions than 64, 128, 256, and 512 would be nice. I'd > like 96 and 192 as options also. Is there some reason why arbitrary > sizes are not currently allowed? > > ------------------------------ > BUG: The random map generator puts too much stone on the shores. > This is a big problem on big 512 by 512 maps. The River generator is > particularly bad. Even if set to 0 stone, it still puts a layer of > stone 5 or 6 cells wide on each shore, making it impossible to get to > any algae (or do any swimming). The river becomes completely > irrelevant except as a barrier. > > ------------------------------ > When using the map generator, I often would like to adjust the > settings I just used and try again. However, the only way I can do > this is to quit out of the editor, which takes me all the way back to > the glob2 main menu, and then go into the map generator from scratch. > So if I want to adjust the settings I used, I have to take detailed > notes in another editor window about the settings I am using, because > I will have to enter them all in again. It would be better if there > was a way to back up to the map generator settings screen and/or to > remember the last set of settings used. > > ------------------------------ > It seems each map has a notion of “home” for each player. This is > where the viewport starts at the beginning of the game and is where > the Home key moves the viewport to. If you have generated a map with > players, each player's “home” is set to the location where the > player's initial hive was placed by the map generator. If you then > delete the initial hive and create a new hive elsewhere, when the game > is played the “home” is still at the location of the initial hive > rather than the new location. It is not clear how one can change a > player's “home” in the map editor. How does one do this? (Actually, > it would also be nice to be able to change one's home during games.) > > ------------------------------ > In the map editor, it would be better if clicking on a resource gave > you its status the same way as it does in the game. > > ------------------------------ > In the map editor, when you place a resource like wheat/wood/algae > each cell gets a random resource value from 1 to 5. If you don't like > the value a particular cell gets, you have to redo the cell repeatedly > until eventually you get what you want. It would be better if you > could simply click on the cell, have its status displayed in the right > panel, and have a slider in the right panel to adjust the value. > > ------------------------------ > In the map editor, when you save the map you get asked for a name with > the default being “No name”. It would be better if glob2 remembered > the name you used the last time you saved the map you are working on > and kept that name as a default. > > ------------------------------ > In the map editor, when you save the map, if you accidentally choose > the name of an already existing map, it does not warn you that you are > about to destroy all of your work on that other map. I think the only > time glob2 should not warn you is if you have previously saved the map > you are working on by that name or loaded it from that file. > > ====================================================================== > miscellaneous: > > ------------------------------ > It seems there is now in glob2 version 0.8.22 a feature where secret > forbidden areas are placed in the extra area a building needs when it > is being upgraded to a larger size. The idea is to speed up the > process of getting globules out of the way so the upgrade can proceed. > > There are two problems with this. > > First, I have seen cases in 0.8.22 where globules would not get out of > the way of the larger space a building needs to be upgraded. I have > been able to solve the problem by adding real forbidden zones by hand > to get globules to move out of the way. So, it seems to me that this > new feature is not working fully correctly. > > Second, I think it would be much better if the forbidden zone added > for this purpose was _not_ hidden. Otherwise the player may end up > extremely confused about why their globules are not able to get > through a passage. It can trap a globule and the user might not > realize their globule is trapped. I just now saw a globule that > seemed to be trapped by such a hidden forbidden zone, spinning around > and not moving at all. > > Improved by comments from: Kai > > ------------------------------ > BUG: When reloading a game, the values on the top line are all zero > for a number of seconds before they get fixed. Probably other > statistics not shown on the top line are also zero for a while. This > shows up in the end-game statistics if it happens to sample the values > during the interval before they are fixed. You get strange graphs > where all of the lines show a sharp spike down to zero in the middle > of an otherwise normal graph. > > ------------------------------ > The statistics used for the busy/free/seeking and hunger/wounded > graphs are not remembered in saved games. It would be better if these > statistics were saved so the graphs could be accurate on restarting a > game. > > ------------------------------ > BUG: If you rename a game file, glob2 can not load it, because the > old name is stored in the file and glob2 fetches that name from the > file and then uses the name stored in the file to open it (even though > it must have already opened the file to even get the bad name!), > rather than the file's actual name. > > ------------------------------ > There is no easy way to tell from the documentation just what the > “--nox” option does or what it is for. There is no match for “nox” on > the Wiki. It is not mentioned in the man page. The only mention of > it in any documentation is in the output from the “--help” option, > which says “runs the game without using the X server”. At first, I > guessed that meant it would run on the console directly, bypassing X. > Reading the code however tells that it completely disables the GUI. > So what is this for, and how do you use it? > > ------------------------------ > “Campaigns” should be called “challenge sequences” or maybe just > “challenges”. The English word “campaign” doesn't really make sense > here. There would need to be more continuity from game to game within > the campaign (i.e., same buildings/globules being reused) in order for > the word “campaign” to make logical sense. > > ====================================================================== > the Savannah bug tracker: > > ------------------------------ > In the Savannah bug tracker, is there any way to sort by date of last > change of a bug report? > > ------------------------------ > In the Savannah bug tracker, it seems that it is not possible to > preview what your comments will look like in the bug display, and > there is no way to fix a comment after it has been made. Is there a > way around this? Is there a page where you can write a test comment > and see how it will be formatted after submission? > > ------------------------------ > In the Savannah bug tracker, verbatim text is displayed in a absurdly > narrow fixed-width subwindow, even when much more horizontal space is > available.