[MOD 0.12.x] Rescaled Evolution Factor

[orzelek]

Yes! That worked.

Sorry for being ignorant, but isn't the evolution factor in multi-player the same for every player?!? I thought it had to do with the map, not the player.

Factor is the same but writing player doesn't work in multiplayer since it's an array then.

[Sander_Bouwhuis]

Aha! That makes sense.

Thanks.

[bam13302]

Been doing some more thinking.
Im not sure limiting each section of the evolution is the best idea.
Perhaps have all of them be capable of increasing the evolution to 100% but slow as they approach it (similar to base game)
so if time evolution was 30%, destruction evolution was 80%, and pollution evolution was 80%, you would have 97.2% [equation i used was 1-(1-time)*(1-destruction)*(1-pollution)]

I played a new game with the new %s, midgame was not as bad (yay), but my current setup is super easy, i am clearing massive biter nests in my tank w/ roboport, no capsules and no turret creep.
The time, evolution, and pollution equation could be something like 1-(.99)^(value), either way, allowing the destruction and pollution to drop over time is still good (its the point of the mod, kind of hard to complain about that )
I know this is quite a bit different than what you originally did, but it will stop the enemy evolution from stagnating for players that manage their pollution.
Another idea, instead of having time as a direct modifier, how about it just makes the %s for pollution and destruction scale faster.

[seronis]

I dont think time should be an absolute evolution factor. Rather pollution should have 2 thresholds. Below X pollution and evolution will decrease over time. The further below that threshold the bigger the evolution decrease rate. Above Y pollution evolution factor is increasing and the further above that threshold the faster it increases. Killing should work the same way. Every kill increases some separate aggression stat. That stat decays over time on its own. And it also has 2 thresholds where below a certain level of aggression evolution will decrease and above a threshold it will increase.

It should be significantly easier to increase evolution than to decrease it. But it should be possible to control it with effort.

[Murlocking]

I dont think time should be an absolute evolution factor. Rather pollution should have 2 thresholds. Below X pollution and evolution will decrease over time. The further below that threshold the bigger the evolution decrease rate. Above Y pollution evolution factor is increasing and the further above that threshold the faster it increases. Killing should work the same way. Every kill increases some separate aggression stat. That stat decays over time on its own. And it also has 2 thresholds where below a certain level of aggression evolution will decrease and above a threshold it will increase.

It should be significantly easier to increase evolution than to decrease it. But it should be possible to control it with effort.

meh

[BenediktMagnus]

Very interesting ideas!
I think I can implement something like that as soon as I have time for Factorio again.

[mattj256]

Im not sure limiting each section of the evolution is the best idea.

Yes, I totally agree with this. I haven't had a chance to play a game with this mod yet. (Installing the mod in my current game feels like cheating because it won't take into account enemy bases I've already destroyed.)

In particular:

• If I kill enough enemy bases, evolution factor should go to 100%.
• If I produce enough pollution, evolution factor should go to 100%.

pollution should have 2 thresholds. Below X pollution and evolution will decrease over time. The further below that threshold the bigger the evolution decrease rate. Above Y pollution evolution factor is increasing and the further above that threshold the faster it increases.

I really like the central idea here. I'm not sure how the math would work.

Pollution


Rather than having two thresholds, I think the pollution component should have a single balance point. If you're polluting exactly at that amount the pollution factor stays constant. If you pollute more the pollution factor increases over time, and if you pollute less the pollution factor decreases over time. The farther you are away from the balance point the larger the change in pollution factor, capped at some value. The balance point should take into account pollution produced and chunks explored.

If I pollute below some arbitrary target value it's fine to reduce the pollution component but the pollution component shouldn't go to zero. Similarly, I don't think it's a good idea to let the evolution factor get to 100% just because I pollute above a target value for a long time. One way to do this is to start with your actual level of pollution produced and then modify it up or down (capped at some value) based on how you're doing compared to the pollution balance point.

Aggression


I don't think it's necessary that the component for aggression decays over time. I'm fine with something simple: If I destroy 100 bases the evolution factor should be 100% regardless of pollution and with no way to lower it. Then scale logarithmically (square root) based on the total number of bases destroyed.

If time decay is used in the calculation for bases destroyed there should be two components: recent aggression and total aggression. The component for recent aggression decays over time, and the component for total aggression does not. I think the aliens should be a lot more forgiving of pollution than they are of having their bases destroyed.

[seronis]

The reason aggression needs to decay over time is otherwise once you get to a point where evolution is going up, it will go up forever even if you dont have any further aggression. The aggression should equal the impulse to increase evolution factor. Thus it needs to decay with time so that a small amount of aggression doesnt mean you are gonna hit 100% evolution factor. Also Its decay rate should be SLOW. I would have each biter/spitter you kill increase aggression by 2 points and each spawner increase aggression by 120 points. And have a decay of 1 point per second. That means each spawner you destroy gives you enough aggression that it wont be forgotten for at least 2 minutes assuming there are no other kills. In that 2 minutes evolution will be increasing. Very rarely will a base area only have one or two spawners. Thus if you clear out a base that will be a noticeable amount of time where evolution is increasing before it levels off. And even once your aggression has zeroed out the evolution decay impulse should be really low meaning you will have to take care not to kill too many random biters.

I would try to balance it so that the rate the enemy force sends random attack parties is roughly how much aggression you can have without increasing evolution. But nearly any base clearing on the players part will increase evolution for some time. Also the player should have to consider the benefits of clearing a few local enemy bases to reduce the rate of those random attacks.

[snelg]

If decaying, it might make sense to have it decay at a slower rate the lower it is to avoid making 0 feasible.

[Arnas1123123]

I think the increase by Pollution is a bit high. im only 30 minutes in my game have a global pollution of 100k and already 5%. i just finished the turret research to defend myself a bit. Almost got killed at the first wave because i only had the pistol.

Not sure if its posible but some kind of difficulty setting would be nice (even if you have to change something in the comfig)

[vaultdweller]

With my mod this changes totally. That three values will still be important but in a different way.
Time increases the evolution factor to a maximum of ten percent (after 24 hours gameplay time, exponential progress) now.
Destroying spawners will increase the factor to a maximum of thirty percent.
And producing pollution will not increase the evolution factor anymore but the total amount of pollution in the environmont will do so (to a maximum of 50%). This means if you decrease your pollution production the enemy strength will decrease, too!
All three values will be accumulated to (if every single one is at maximum) hundred percent.

Am I missing something here? 10 + 30 + 50 does not add up to 100%. Where does the remaining 10% come from?

[BenediktMagnus]

Am I missing something here? 10 + 30 + 50 does not add up to 100%. Where does the remaining 10% come from?

A tiny mistake in the description. I have changed it to the 20% that it is.

@all: I am working at the new concept. But at the moment I don't have a lot of time. So please stay patient for a while.

[vaultdweller]

Excellent. Thanks for the clarification.

[bam13302]

Bug, the actual in game evolution factor caps out at 95% with this mod (20/25/50), looks like the % from destroying bases is only 25% not 30%

[BenediktMagnus]

Argh, thanks for report! I have fixed it, should work correctly now.

[SuumCuique]

Is there any way to change the scaling of pollution? I am playing with Marathon andRSO and love the idea of your mod, but the scaling for pollution is too high. In my current gam i just barely automated green science and I am already at 50% just pollution alone. I tried changing some values in the config file but it had no effect.

Getting overrun by spitters and medium bitters isn't as fun as it may sound.

[BenediktMagnus]

At the moment (until next version when the rescaling will come) you can do the following:
In the control.lua of my mod at line 40 is

Code: Select all

local pollution_summe = summe/math.log(anzahl)/100000 * 5

"summe" is the total pollution at the moment.
"anzahl" is the number of discovered chunks.
"100000" is the constant value which is important for scaling. If you increase it the evolution factor will decrease linearly. If you double it to 200,000, your evolution factor should decrease by 25% to 50% (depending by how much time has past and how many bitter nests you destroyed).

By the way some hint that could help:
Discovering helps douple: Your pollution will decrease because more chunks/trees/water reduce your pollution. And the calculated evolution factor will decrease because it reduces the influence by pollution (total pollution is divided by the log of the discovered chunks).

[BenediktMagnus]

Hello everybody!

I've uploaded a testing version with some changes to the evolution factor formula based on your suggestions. Because I need some help with balancing it is only testing version yet. But you can help completing it!

Please say me what you think about how it works.

[Shrooblord]

I'm getting an error when trying to run the test version:

Error while running the event handler:
__Rescaled-Evolution-Factor__/control.lua.66: attempt to perform arithmetic on global 'spawner_wertung' (a nil value)

I've looked inside the control.lua and found that, indeed, spawner_wertung is not defined before it is used in line 66:

66] local faktor = pollution_wertung + spawner_wertung

I could make some value up to define it, but I bet you had intentions for a specific, non-zero value, right? So I'd better let the variable definitions up to you.

[BenediktMagnus]

Grrr, that variable is the tiny rest of my (very short) try to implement the new design also for spawners. I changed it by the old code before uploading and forgot to change the variable names also. Thanks for notify me! I've changed it.