Hi everybody... I discovered something quite interesting...

I will begin with the first strange thing:
There was a planet of mine that was hit by a comet and turned red, it still had a base and a gate, but i removed all pop to another planet except for 100. One turn I gated remote miners to that planet - the same turn the remaining 100 pop died - the miners gated and the planet became uninhabited the same turn.
The strange thing was, that the miners did mine the same turn!
This is usually only possible for AR races: gating and mining the same turn - for other PRTs it is not possible cause you cant remote mine inhabited planets anyway...

Another thing AR only can do is to remotemine their homeworld and always have 30% capacity of minerals.

What I did was to evacuate a planet the same turn my remotes arrived to get a similar effect, but uploading (wp0 and wp1) does not work, neither does bombing or packets.

BUT:
Looking at the order of events, pop dies (red planets) close to packet hits launched the same turn. What I found out is that if
- miners arrive throug a gate in one turn (i did noch check for simply "arriving")
- in the same turn the planet is killed by a packet launched the same turn (so the sending driver must be very close: <50ly with warp10)
then the remotes will not only mine, they will also get the 30% concentration on a homeworld (for that turn only).

This makes also non AR PRTs quite powerful, as they can have a very small mineral fountain, but only 33% (or 25%) as efficient. When you mined you need to recolonize the next turn, set up a gate and gate the remotes back, takes quite a while. An IT is good with it cause of cheap and infinite mass gates... if you get the alien miner it is also ok, but with just not OBRM and not being IT it is still quite hard to make real use of...

Still this really changes end-game, but is not that bad IMO

Do you think this is a trick or a cheat???

Robert

[Updated on: Sat, 02 April 2005 02:24]

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I guess that due to the very rare circumstances you describe, it's unlikely that you could ever use this bug to your advantage...

I mean... you'd have to colonise a red planet with 100 people.. build a stargate, predict when they're going to die off.. and then send mining vessels throught the stargate...

All just for an extra year's worth of mining??

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Don't forget the resource cost of the miner too!
Might be better off doing some Mineral Alchemy...

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Storm wrote on Sat, 02 April 2005 11:08

Don't forget the resource cost of the miner too! Might be better off doing some Mineral Alchemy...

Hmm.... this is ment to help in the end game, when you got resources, but no minerals. You are right that when you still got research to do and some minerals to ship around then this is not helpful...

Still - try to compare the pay-off from MA and remotes (even with 25% efficiency)

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Ooooh!

Testbedded...

That's weird...

It only works if you gate them... not fly them there...

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Hi!

Storm wrote on Sat, 02 April 2005 12:31

Ooooh! Testbedded... That's weird... It only works if you gate them... not fly them there...

I can not repeat this, neither with 2.7j RC3 nor 2.6j RC4. Gated remotes don't even mine in the turn they arrive.

Exact description of the testbed:
- a fleet of 80 midget miners with ultra miner already mined the planet down to MC 5,
- that planet (red or green) builds fort with 300 gates,
- I lift by hand all pop but 100, and all minerals,
- I queue a packet to that planet,
- I send through gates there a fleet of remotes with order to remote mine.
In next turn I got the message that a planet produced a packet and that pop on another planet was killed with a packet. When those remotes do their job in the next year, there's only the amount of minerals from that turn, plus what was left from a packet.
What am I doing wrong?
BR, Iztok

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Hi!

Storm wrote on Sat, 02 April 2005 12:31

Testbedded... That's weird... It only works if you gate them... not fly them there...

Gating happens before battle, bombing, etc, so it could be easier for the presumed bug to slip through the cracks.

If there was a hole in the "mine uninhabited only" vs "mining happens only as a waypoint1 task" code, and guessing the "AR mineral fountain" test is a simple one, we should be asking how it was never found before.

I'd label it as a bug, and let hosts decide if they want to allow it in their games.

The thing is, I haven't been able to testbed it, either. Miners gate, HW is emptied by packet launched the same turn, and all, but the remotes don't mine on arrival, and afterwards there's no fountain.

15 minutes down the drain.

C U!

[Updated on: Sun, 03 April 2005 12:09]

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Quote:

I can not repeat this, neither with 2.7j RC3 nor 2.6j RC4. Gated remotes don't even mine in the turn they arrive.

I think Robert might have been having a little joke with you. Check out the date of his posting

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Well.... check the order of events:

pop dies, packets hit, random events all at the same time, or very close.

Random events are initiated by random numbers, and random numbers have to do with random number generators, and random number generators are initialized for example by date/time...

It might help that when I did the testbed the date to initalize my random number generator was April 1st - indeed

Thanks to Storm for help once he got it, hope the others are not too angry about my joke and did not waste too much time testbedding this obviously not working trick...

I will try again next year

Robert

[Updated on: Sun, 03 April 2005 11:05]

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I'm sure nobody wasted any time on that...

I mean, after all, we all have lives outside of Stars!, don't we?

Don't we??

DON'T WE?????!!!!!

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Storm wrote on Sun, 03 April 2005 17:16

I'm sure nobody wasted any time on that... I mean, after all, we all have lives outside of Stars!, don't we? Don't we?? DON'T WE?????!!!!!

You could also say: time invested in stars is _never_ wasted!
Even if you find out about another trick not working...

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Storm wrote on Sun, 03 April 2005 17:16

I'm sure nobody wasted any time on that...

It was the perfect excuse to finish getting ready a "MT toys" testbed I had half-abandoned. Lots of fun with those Alien Miners!

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Hi!

Robert wrote on Sun, 03 April 2005 17:03

...It might help that when I did the testbed the date to initalize my random number generator was April 1st - indeed

Damn!
I really take this game way to seriously.

A good one, Robert! It took me a whole two hours to fail testing your April foolery. Will remember that.
BR, Iztok

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m.a@stars wrote on Sun, 03 April 2005 12:12

It was the perfect excuse to finish getting ready a "MT toys" testbed I had half-abandoned. Lots of fun with those Alien Miners!

If you want an MT toys testbed, I can send you something. I found a way of enabling MT toys from year 1. I think I might still have the file somewhere.

[Updated on: Mon, 04 April 2005 07:55]

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PricklyPear wrote on Mon, 04 April 2005 13:54

If you want an MT toys testbed, I can send you something. I found a way of enabling MT toys from year 1. I think I might still have the file somewhere.

Please send it ASAP.

Looks like a trick too interesting to be stored exclusively on your hard drive.

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m.a stars wrote on Mon, 04 April 2005 11:08

Please send it ASAP. Looks like a trick too interesting to be stored exclusively on your hard drive.

Heh. It could be abused actually. I think I set it up to give player 1 all MT tech in the first turn Is it possible for me to generate a turn that has been hosted elsewhere? If so, you could send me the files and then I could generate 1 turn to give MT tech. Or do you want the mod?

[Updated on: Mon, 04 April 2005 11:59]

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PricklyPear wrote on Mon, 04 April 2005 17:55

If so, you could send me the files and then I could generate 1 turn to give MT tech. Or do you want the mod?

I think the mod/howto would be best, actually. It could conceivably lead to a few "contrived scenario" games otherwise too hard to set up.

Another cool mod might be enabling all MT toys to the races in a game that had a certain PRT/LRT/leftover_points combo. Say non-JoaT, non-CA, UR, MA, GR, 300 leftover points... Perhaps crazy, but...

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>I think the mod/howto would be best, actually. It could conceivably lead to a few "contrived scenario" games otherwise too hard to set up.

That's what I developed it for initially. I'm thinking of setting up a game where I am the host/observer race who can act as a MT and give MT parts etc.

PM me your email and I'll send you the mod (if I still have it).

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PricklyPear wrote on Mon, 04 April 2005 17:50

That's what I developed it for initially. I'm thinking of setting up a game where I am the host/observer race who can act as a MT and give MT parts etc.

<quietly shelves the game he was working on>

*sniff*

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