[MOD 1.1] Natural Evolution - All things Alien!

[TheSAguy]

I tried out the dart turrets in a new game, I like them - they fill a certain early game niche perfectly. Gun turrets are effective against everything until you start seeing medium biters, who have too much physical resist even for piercing ammo to be practical. Piercing darts do a better job at holding them off until you have lasers, which can take a while on marathon.

Glad to hear that!

[kaonik]

I'm playing multiplayer on 16.16 and it seems that alien kills don't drop the small artifacts? Is this intended? Any fix for it?

[OvermindDL1]

Got an error on loading a new game:

Code: Select all

 205.288 Error ServerMultiplayerManager.cpp:95: MultiplayerManager failed: "Error while running on_init: Error while running event Natural_Evolution_Buildings::on_research_finished (ID 18)
__Natural_Evolution_Buildings__/control.lua:556: attempt to perform arithmetic on field 'deduction_constant' (a nil value)
stack traceback:
        ...mapps/common/Factorio/temp/currently-playing/control.lua:787: in function 'set_research'
        ...mapps/common/Factorio/temp/currently-playing/control.lua:122: in function 'init_forces'
        ...mapps/common/Factorio/temp/currently-playing/control.lua:22: in function <...mapps/common/Factorio/temp/currently-playing/control.lua:19>"

NEBuildings 8.0.6

[TheSAguy]

I'm playing multiplayer on 16.16 and it seems that alien kills don't drop the small artifacts? Is this intended? Any fix for it?

The new Rampant mod release is causing this. Still need a fix. You need to disable new enemies in Rampant for now.

[TheSAguy]

Got an error on loading a new game:

Code: Select all

 205.288 Error ServerMultiplayerManager.cpp:95: MultiplayerManager failed: "Error while running on_init: Error while running event Natural_Evolution_Buildings::on_research_finished (ID 18)
__Natural_Evolution_Buildings__/control.lua:556: attempt to perform arithmetic on field 'deduction_constant' (a nil value)
stack traceback:
        ...mapps/common/Factorio/temp/currently-playing/control.lua:787: in function 'set_research'
        ...mapps/common/Factorio/temp/currently-playing/control.lua:122: in function 'init_forces'
        ...mapps/common/Factorio/temp/currently-playing/control.lua:22: in function <...mapps/common/Factorio/temp/currently-playing/control.lua:19>"

NEBuildings 8.0.6

This seems to be a Factorio issue to do with Scenarios. See post here.

[OvermindDL1]

This seems to be a Factorio issue to do with Scenarios. See post here.

Well, that thread is causing quite a commotion. ^.^;

[TheSAguy]

This seems to be a Factorio issue to do with Scenarios. See post here.

Well, that thread is causing quite a commotion. ^.^;

I know and it's all over my head

[jape3]

Hello

We are playing a multiplayer game with a few mods. Natural evolution expansion seems to be causing desync problems.
The problems always occur after loading an MP save, not during an already running game. Sometimes one of the older autosave slots works, but other times not. Disabling NE expansion mod clears the problem, but if enabled again it will desync instantly again.

Are desycn reports of any value here?

[jape3]

One part of the problem code seems to be function On_Change_Setup(), which ends up being called on on_configuration_changed(f) event. It looks like copying initial values to game.map_settings.enemy_expansion breaks sync..

We got another desync by trying to join a game that had been running a while after loading from saved game. A save + load and joining right after that solved that problem so we didn't bother to hunt for that bug at least for now.

[TheSAguy]

One part of the problem code seems to be function On_Change_Setup(), which ends up being called on on_configuration_changed(f) event. It looks like copying initial values to game.map_settings.enemy_expansion breaks sync..

We got another desync by trying to join a game that had been running a while after loading from saved game. A save + load and joining right after that solved that problem so we didn't bother to hunt for that bug at least for now.

Hey jape3,
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Not actively playing at the moment.
I don't play Multiplayer, so can't really test and find a fix. Thanks for looking into this a bit.

I've released version 8.0.2 that might fix this issue.

Thanks.

[Gentz]

We got another desync by trying to join a game that had been running a while after loading from saved game. A save + load and joining right after that solved that problem so we didn't bother to hunt for that bug at least for now.

This bug plagued one of our servers, any knowledge of a fix? I'll be able to investigate in around 9 hours.

[mrvn]

Bio-cannon could use an upgrade now - it could be changed to reuse artilliery and it wouldn't need a targetting script then.
It might be a lot of work.. I didn't look how complex is artilliery definition.

Do we even need a biocannon?

Wouldn't it be enough to have different ammo for the artillery?

[mrvn]

I tried out the dart turrets in a new game, I like them - they fill a certain early game niche perfectly. Gun turrets are effective against everything until you start seeing medium biters, who have too much physical resist even for piercing ammo to be practical. Piercing darts do a better job at holding them off until you have lasers, which can take a while on marathon.

I love the dart turrets too, due to their range. They have a larger range than gun turrets, larger range than the alien worms at the beginning. So you can snipe at them from a distance. Maybe a bit overkill, certainly makes the gun turrets useless for me.

[TheSAguy]

Bio-cannon could use an upgrade now - it could be changed to reuse artilliery and it wouldn't need a targetting script then.
It might be a lot of work.. I didn't look how complex is artilliery definition.

Do we even need a biocannon?

Wouldn't it be enough to have different ammo for the artillery?

I agree the Bio Cannon is not what it use to be back in 0.15, before 0.16 added the artillery, but it's still earlier in the tech tree and might be helpful in a really hard game where you can't wait till you have the Artillery.

I tried out the dart turrets in a new game, I like them - they fill a certain early game niche perfectly. Gun turrets are effective against everything until you start seeing medium biters, who have too much physical resist even for piercing ammo to be practical. Piercing darts do a better job at holding them off until you have lasers, which can take a while on marathon.

I love the dart turrets too, due to their range. They have a larger range than gun turrets, larger range than the alien worms at the beginning. So you can snipe at them from a distance. Maybe a bit overkill, certainly makes the gun turrets useless for me.

I agree it's a little OP, but a good sinc for wood and copper.

[Houyami]

I get the following error when trying to boot into 0.16.29 With Natural Evolution Enemies enabled https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ ... nknown.png

[TheSAguy]

I get the following error when trying to boot into 0.16.29 With Natural Evolution Enemies enabled https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ ... nknown.png

Thanks, should be fixed in 8.1.1.

[Houyami]

I get the following error when trying to boot into 0.16.29 With Natural Evolution Enemies enabled https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ ... nknown.png

Thanks, should be fixed in 8.1.1.

Cheer's Mate.

[mrvn]

I tried out the dart turrets in a new game, I like them - they fill a certain early game niche perfectly. Gun turrets are effective against everything until you start seeing medium biters, who have too much physical resist even for piercing ammo to be practical. Piercing darts do a better job at holding them off until you have lasers, which can take a while on marathon.

I love the dart turrets too, due to their range. They have a larger range than gun turrets, larger range than the alien worms at the beginning. So you can snipe at them from a distance. Maybe a bit overkill, certainly makes the gun turrets useless for me.

I think the dart turrets should be more of an defensive weapon so you can survive. If you want to go to war you should research some weapon techs. But due to the range the dart turrets are the weapon of choice for turret creep even against somewhat evolved worms. I love that I can do that but logically a little blow gun shouldn't fire further than gunpowder driven bullets.

In the spirit of dart turrets has anyone considered making a trebuchet? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trebuchet Or some other pre gunpowder artillery? Or a balista and later cannons? Would be nice to have more of a evolution for the artillery instead of going from "we can't kill the aliens at all anymore without heavy losses" to "the aliens have no chance to breed" in an instant.

[Mylon]

I got an desync error on player join using Natural Evolution suite. When I disabled Natural Evolution Expansion, the error went away. Please check for use of math.random() in odd places in your mod, especially in the data stage!

[jape3]

I got an desync error on player join using Natural Evolution suite. When I disabled Natural Evolution Expansion, the error went away. Please check for use of math.random() in odd places in your mod, especially in the data stage!

I think the problem is not with the use of random. The problem more likely is that the on update script (that is called every time mod setup is changed or a mod is updated), these lines are called

Code: Select all

	enemy_expansion.max_expansion_distance = global.max_expansion_distance_G / 2	
	enemy_expansion.friendly_base_influence_radius = global.friendly_base_influence_radius_G	
	enemy_expansion.enemy_building_influence_radius = global.enemy_building_influence_radius_G	
	
	enemy_expansion.settler_group_min_size = global.settler_group_min_size_G / 2
	enemy_expansion.settler_group_max_size = global.settler_group_max_size_G / 2
	---
	enemy_expansion.building_coefficient = global.building_coefficient_G
	enemy_expansion.other_base_coefficient = global.other_base_coefficient_G
	enemy_expansion.neighbouring_chunk_coefficient = global.neighbouring_chunk_coefficient_G
	enemy_expansion.neighbouring_base_chunk_coefficient = global.neighbouring_base_chunk_coefficient_G
	---
	unit_group.max_group_radius = global.max_group_radius_G
	unit_group.min_group_radius = global.min_group_radius_G

I think for the on update script to work properly, these assignments need to be put inside the same if brackets that assign the global values. Then these values are copied to the game settings only when the mod is loaded the first time on a game. The mod initially works, because these values have not yet been tweaked by the evolution factor at the beginning of the game. Later on, as the game has been going for a while these settings are overwritten on the host, and when a client joins it loads the start values and the game syncs out.

That anyways was out assesment of the problem, not 100% sure if it's the correct one To fix our ongoing multiplayer game, we just commented these lines out. I have not yet tested your 8.0.2 update to see if the fixes the problem, I think it might solve it for the ongoing game thing but might not work for the case when the mod is applied in the middle of the game. I'll comment more when I get time to test the new version.