A [Poll] about fixing the 0.16 world generator bugs

Gergely · Post by **Gergely** » Sat Jan 13, 2018 1:47 pm

I have no idea to which forum this topic should belong. Moderators, move it if necessary, but maybe leave a link.

The cliff generation system is incomplete probably because 0.16 was rushed. Here it is:

Bug

If you quickly want to see something for yourself, type seed 0 with normal settings -> Cliffs in starting area.
Do you agree with the following viewpoint?

Twinsen wrote:It's a known issue. Unfortunately the fix will be in 0.17 since we can't change map generator without creating glitches in existing saves.

Try out the exchange string if you don't believe it. It does something quite interesting in 0.16.16
Should it stay when 0.16 becomes stable? It is experimental release after all, so nothing is set in stone. It is also "use at your own risk", so it's not exactly like punishing those who already started a long term session in it.

And if they only fix it in 0.17, what will happen if something goes wrong with the world gen in 0.17? What do you think will happen? Will we wait for 0.18?

Share your opinion!

5thHorseman · Post by **5thHorseman** » Sat Jan 13, 2018 2:32 pm

Just to be clear, the problem is that there are cliffs in the starting area on rare occasions and you have to regenerate the map, like most of us do about 50 times before playing a new game anyway? Not like the game crashes or becomes totally unplayable, or has an unforseen problem after 100 hours of gameplay?

Because that will greatly affect my vote.

Gergely · Post by **Gergely** » Sat Jan 13, 2018 3:01 pm

5thHorseman wrote:Just to be clear, the problem is that there are cliffs in the starting area on rare occasions and you have to regenerate the map, like most of us do about 50 times before playing a new game anyway? Not like the game crashes or becomes totally unplayable, or has an unforseen problem after 100 hours of gameplay?

Because that will greatly affect my vote.

One type of bug sometimes only shows itself after many hours of gameplay, when you start exploring large chunks of land. Read the bug report linked for more info.

5thHorseman · Post by **5thHorseman** » Sun Jan 14, 2018 6:24 am

So you can regenerate at world start if you have no cliffs, and if you do have cliffs you can play.

No I'm cool not breaking everybody's save to fix this.

Engimage · Post by **Engimage** » Sun Jan 14, 2018 10:53 am

0.16 was fresh enough for me to start over and not stay on my previous bases as they wouldn’t work fine anyways due to compression issues.
So I would vote for the asap fix especially if logistic changes are happening. So we have two solid reasons to start all bases over anyways.
So I am up for the change at the same time as logistic changes are. ASAP.

If logistic changes are postponed till 0.17 then other map breakers should as well and players will be mentally ready to start from scratch.

Gergely · Post by **Gergely** » Sun Jan 14, 2018 8:06 pm

5thHorseman wrote:No I'm cool not breaking everybody's save to fix this.

I don't even START a long term session because I am afraid of updates that would break it. Experimental versions are "use at your own risk" anyway. Not that I blame you for possibly protecting your own save.

What do you mean by "Everybody"? According to the current state of the poll, the majority would rather sacrifice their saves in order to have this bug fixed.

Gergely · Post by **Gergely** » Tue Jan 16, 2018 8:25 pm

I suggest that IF a bug is discovered in the world gen, it should be fixed ASAP as long as it's still an Experimental Release.

Why?

You made a lot of changes to the world gen, it's no wonder it contains bugs. Nothing works as expected for the first time. The 0.16 update's greatest purpose is to overhaul the world generator. Changing the world generator does not even make previous saves unplayable! Change it day and night between every release! It only creates those harmless (but harsh )transitions.

Jap2.0 wrote:There's a reason it's called experimental...

ex·per·i·men·tal
[ikˌsperəˈmen(t)l]
ADJECTIVE
(of a new invention or product) based on untested ideas or techniques and not yet established or finalized:
"an experimental drug"
synonyms: exploratory · investigational · trial · test · pilot · speculative · conjectural · hypothetical · tentative · preliminary · untested · untried

DO IT FOR A STABLE RELEASE!!!! You encourage people to only play stable releases, and you warn them about the risks of playing experimental ones. Many of them don't take that risk, and then you "protect" the ones who did?! I am one of those who did download 0.16, but I do not start a long-term session until stable because I don't take that sort of risk. Why would I?

Post by **Twinsen** » Tue Jan 16, 2018 10:21 pm

The bug is being looked into actually.
Due to the complexity and unpredictability of the map generator, this can take some time. Also TOGos is working part time.

I said it will be fixed in 0.17 but hopefully it will be fixed before 0.16 becomes stable.

olafthecat · Post by **olafthecat** » Wed Jan 17, 2018 11:03 am

How do you make polls?
I have never worked it out.

Acacel · Post by **Acacel** » Wed Jan 17, 2018 7:59 pm

Twinsen wrote:The bug is being looked into actually.
Due to the complexity and unpredictability of the map generator, this can take some time. Also TOGos is working part time.

I said it will be fixed in 0.17 but hopefully it will be fixed before 0.16 becomes stable.

that is good news

Gergely · Post by **Gergely** » Wed Jan 17, 2018 8:50 pm

olafthecat wrote:How do you make polls?
I have never worked it out.

When you create a new topic in a forum, scroll down and you see several tabs. There you can find "Poll creation".

Acacel wrote:
Twinsen wrote:The bug is being looked into actually.
Due to the complexity and unpredictability of the map generator, this can take some time. Also TOGos is working part time.

I said it will be fixed in 0.17 but hopefully it will be fixed before 0.16 becomes stable.
that is good news

That is really good news! (Or at least, to the majority.)

Jap2.0 · Post by **Jap2.0** » Wed Jan 17, 2018 9:18 pm

Twinsen wrote:The bug is being looked into actually.
Due to the complexity and unpredictability of the map generator, this can take some time. Also TOGos is working part time.

I said it will be fixed in 0.17 but hopefully it will be fixed before 0.16 becomes stable.

Yay!

olafthecat · Post by **olafthecat** » Thu Jan 18, 2018 11:03 am

Gergely wrote:When you create a new topic in a forum, scroll down and you see several tabs. There you can find "Poll creation".

Cheers!

Gergely · Post by **Gergely** » Sat Mar 10, 2018 8:28 pm

Aaaaaaaand, the results are in!!!

The winner: Option number 1 (Wait for 0.17)

MeduSalem · Post by **MeduSalem** » Sat Mar 10, 2018 9:59 pm

Looks like it.

But there have been more issues raised than just the cliffs anyway so it is better they take an allaround sweep to thoroughly fix the world generator in 0.17.

For example the resource placement also sometimes delivers unpredictible results... Sometimes it's too much Iron, and almost no Copper or the other way around and other such things with the other resources as well. The only thing in overabundance is Uranium Ore, no matter the settings.
Water/Lakes are also weird... either you get swamps and marshes with little puddles... or you get so dense water labyrinths that it hampers gameplay (at least I don't find it fun if water is more connected than land).

That the starting area is generated entirely different from the actual map settings often doesn't help much either, because if at all it makes it much harder to judge in advance if the chosen map settings are going to work out... since the map preview doesn't reach far enough, especially on bigger starting area sizes and lower resource frequencies. Water settings pretty much have the same problem too... I often don't even know if the settings are good or not until I expanded far enough to leave the starting area... just to see the disaster the world generator has gifted to me.

I recently had to abandon 2 maps because of that... It looked quite okay on the Preview, but then I ran out of one resource and couldn't find more or it was so deep in biter territory that it would have been a suicide mission, the other map I abandoned because I didn't like how the world generator created the water outside the starting area, which I couldn't judge beforehand because of said reasons that the settings don't affect the starting area.

In normal settings it's not much of a problem, but on Death World settings it really depends on luck that there isn't a huge ass biter nest sitting directly on your only oil wells, hindering you from progressing any further.

impetus maximus · Post by **impetus maximus** » Sun Mar 11, 2018 12:00 am

the preview is not necessarily what the world will look like. it's guesstimating.

Gergely wrote:
Aaaaaaaand, the results are in!!!
The winner: Option number 1 (Wait for 0.17)

what makes you say that?

MeduSalem · Post by **MeduSalem** » Sun Mar 11, 2018 12:57 am

impetus maximus wrote:the preview is not necessarily what the world will look like. it's guesstimating.

The problem is that the Starting Area is generated with a different set of algorithms than the rest of the map both landscape and resource wise, so the bigger you select the starting area the more you render the preview useless because of how the preview is filled up with the starting area overrides instead of what the map is looking like in average.

There are two possible suggestions I have for that... either make the starting area use the same algorithms as everything else (leave the landscape be and only slap additional starter resource patches ontop of what is generated by the global algorithm to guarantee that everything is available and only remove biters within a certain radius depending on area size)... or make the preview window scrollable even further out from the center to get a better preview of the surroundings. I would welcome both.

But that said the algorithms themselves should be looked into themselves as well anyway.

impetus maximus · Post by **impetus maximus** » Sun Mar 11, 2018 1:16 am

i hear ya. i just reveal 2048x2048 of the world to test resource settings.

MeduSalem · Post by **MeduSalem** » Sun Mar 11, 2018 1:18 am

impetus maximus wrote:i hear ya. i just reveal 2048x2048 of the world to test resource settings.

I usually look into the map using the Map Editor first... allowing me to scroll endlessly... and then I just copy&paste the map string into a regular new game.

impetus maximus · Post by **impetus maximus** » Sun Mar 11, 2018 1:22 am

MeduSalem wrote: I usually look into the map using the Map Editor first... allowing me to scroll endlessly... and then I just copy&paste the map string into a regular new game.

oh that's clever.

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