Stay on planet surface after finishing Contract

[cynik]

It would be nice to find ourselfs on the planet after we finish a Contract. Sometimes there are more than 1 Contract in the same location and you have to spend another week (or weeks if there are more encouters) to get back. Of course I'm talking about deliver/transport Contracts, not assassination/captrure, because the second 2 are finished in space battle.

[spike]

+1. I was just going to post on this.

Presumably the game goes to space after a contract for the usual state management reasons.

Solution is to set a flag at the end of a non combat contract completion.. The flag permits you one free trip from space back to the Zone where the contract occurred. Only for your next movement action. Flag is then cleared. By "free" meaning no Encounters and preferably no time passes.

[mordechai]

Mar 7, 2011 15:00:59 GMT -5 cynik said:

It would be nice to find ourselfs on the planet after we finish a Contract. Sometimes there are more than 1 Contract in the same location and you have to spend another week (or weeks if there are more encouters) to get back. Of course I'm talking about deliver/transport Contracts, not assassination/captrure, because the second 2 are finished in space battle.

I was going to post about this issue, but I'll bump this thread instead. I'd also like to add four things.

First, this sometimes causes a contract to expire causing a lost of rep. and revenue.

Second, it's very easy to hit the wrong button (fingers are a lot fatter than mouse pointers) which can also cause a loss of contract.

Third, when given the option to try later, it would be nice to still be able access the the area.

And fourth, when there are multiple contracts, I would like to be able to choose which contract to fulfil. In choosing which contract to complete, time, money and danger are three factors which must be weighed. To be denied this just because the contracts happen to be at the same location is annoying and can lead to contract failure.

[slayernz]

Not only that, but you might have two contracts on one planet, one in the Palace, and one in the Spice Hall. If the Palace contract was chronologically acquired before the Spice Hall contract, then only the Palace will be bolded (and therefore be actionable). The Spice Hall will NOT be bolded and if you go into the hall, you just get the usual fare of being able to buy spice, entertainment, etc.

So why is this a problem?
1) Sometimes your 2nd contract might be expiring in one week and you've got plenty of weeks available for the 1st contract. Result: Contract 2 expires and you lose RP.
2) Occasionally there is an assassination attempt and the palace is closed. Then you can't complete Contract 1, and you can't complete Contract 2. Palace is closed beyond expiry of both contracts. Result: both contracts expire and you lose RP

So solution:
1) If there is a contract for a specific destination (eg Spice Hall), provide the ability to do normal Spice Hall operations (Recruit, rumor, spice, entertain, etc)
2) If there is more than one contract available in a single location, then the user should be able to choose between the contracts available (or whatever their active contract is as selected by "Plot" under the Contracts tab).
3) If there is more than one contract in more than one location in an urban area, then each location should be bold and the contract achievable.
4) If you do a delivery type contract, you should remain in the zone you did the delivery (urban / wild / orbit / space.
5) If you do a capture/kill contract, you should remain in the zone that you did the final action - ie, orbit or deep space.
6) For Kill contracts, the "back" button should provide a confirmation prompt so you don't accidentally exit a contract without destroying your target.


I think this list captures mordechai's feedback as well

[mordechai]

Aug 3, 2011 22:57:42 GMT -5 slayernz said:

Not only that, but you might have two contracts on one planet, one in the Palace, and one in the Spice Hall. If the Palace contract was chronologically acquired before the Spice Hall contract, then only the Palace will be bolded (and therefore be actionable). The Spice Hall will NOT be bolded and if you go into the hall, you just get the usual fare of being able to buy spice, entertainment, etc.

There's another, related issue. If your contract has expired, but the issuer hasn't yet noticed, and there are other buttons highlighted for other reasons (e.g., Star Dock for sail damage or Spice Hall for recruiting), if you go urban but forget to note where to go, if you hit the wrong button you loose rep. Two possible solutions:
1. Change the background color, or
2. Change the font color.

I think this list captures mordechai's feedback as well

Pretty much; thanks.

[Tenebrous Pirate]

Ditto.

[Cory Trese]

I will work to improve any future game's limitations on data storage and object persistence.

Re-coding this part of the engine might take weeks. I'm not honestly very excited about it because I still feel like it is part of the challenge balance.

One comment in this thread is particularly troublesome to me:

"fingers are a lot fatter than mouse pointers"

This is specifically addressed by Android's default controls. You will notice that we go out of our way to ensure that we use standard Android layout and spacing as well as avoid any violation of the "clickable region size."

So I agree with that statement that mice pointers are more precise, but the interface is designed for touch. All of that, of course, goes out the window if you are running a custom skin / theme or something that changes the internal rendering requirements of Android.

I would love to hear more feedback about that. Even if I cannot do much to correct it, I'd be happy to log bugs against the Android OS on your behalf with Google.

[mordechai]

Aug 5, 2011 12:39:36 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

...I will work to improve any future game's limitations on data storage and object persistence....I still feel like it is part of the challenge balance.

I don't understand how the various issues raised relate to game balance? If anything, they seem to relate more towards game consistency.

One comment in this thread is particularly troublesome to me:

"fingers are a lot fatter than mouse pointers"

This is specifically addressed by Android's default controls. You will notice that we go out of our way to ensure that we use standard Android layout and spacing as well as avoid any violation of the "clickable region size."

I'm sorry you found the comment troubling as it wasn't meant as a criticism (and certainly not one directed towards you) but to emphasize a limitation of the platform and express my chagrin that it can result in a penalty.

I have a suggestion for a possible fix. As it seems that the upon reentering the main urban zone menu causes various checks, a flag can be set to indicate that some action was taken via one of the sub menus. If the flag remains clear, no recheck are necessary.

[Cory Trese]

slayernz -- I will add #6 to the list

[Cory Trese]

It is a very complex web of threads, caches and databases. The game is running several "simulation" steps in the background, flushing the results into the main thread (for the UI) and then synchronizing them to the database.

The design is very much a compromise -- but you might notice that you can switch into and out of ST RPG very easily and with no loss of game function or phone performance.

The games does all of this while running a fairly economic and political simulation, and tracking all the rumors, contracts, etc.

I can totally understand why on the surface the behavior of entering the urban zone appears to be a set of menu checks. However, from the code standpoint the entrance to urban zone routines are critical to a number of sub-systems and data model updates.

I intentionally painted us into this corner -- this is not at all an accident. It is one of those early on decisions that define the rules of the system.

All of the Contracts text describes a meeting in orbit with a ship. The game is about "the Captain" and he is a primary character because of his skills and control of a Void-capable Starcraft. Therefore the Contracts he take center around his ship.

- Land and make your way to the Palace. Signal your Contact and agree upon a rendezvous location. Make for low orbit and meet with the shuttle.

- Hide your ship and make your way to the Spice Hall. Follow the Contact until he returns to his ship and is not under the protection of the Urban Security Force. Once on-board, destroy both him and his ship to send a message.

All Contracts are registered with "The Central Database" as are all Credit Transactions. Without the Central Database, all galactic commerce would grind to a halt. Completing his Contracts out of order is easy -- he simply Voids the Contract and lands in the Urban Zone, ready to complete his next assignment.

So that said, I understand the points made in mordechai and slayernz post. Sadly, the request is something like:

"I really like this skyscraper but the foundation is aligned the wrong way. Can you turn the whole building 36% to clockwise?"

I can understand what you are saying I'm fairly sure it isn't a cost effective change.

[Cory Trese]

Thinking outside the previous post's parameters:


I could ensure in the contract generator that contracts to the same planet are simply never assigned.

That is an easy fix!

---

Contract Expiration : I can move this simulation step to the urban zone take off instead of where it is today. i will experiment with that and see if i can find a way that will work, which would eliminate the "i clicked the wrong bold button" symptom.

[slayernz]

I think the easiest way to re-orient the building by 36 degrees would be either increasing the tilt on the Earth's axis, or maybe just move the city 36 degrees as well so all of the infrastructure wouldn't be disrupted.

Alternatively, we could just nuke the building from orbit with a trusty Cadar STG (Space To Ground) missile. Insurance would then build the building in the right direction for us

[Cory Trese]

slayernz -- what did you think of my second set of ideas around tuning the contract generator and moving expiration?

[Cory Trese]

I really do identify with what mordechai is saying about being penalized for clicking on the wrong bold button, and I can see how the "order of contracts" (no matter how justified in the game world) doesn't make people happy.

I cannot fix the underlying architecture, but I might be able to hide it.

[slayernz]

For the first - if it really is a significant change to support my suggestions 1, 2, and 3 above, then perhaps it would be good to limit contract generation to avoid two contracts in the same-place. In saying that, almost every single contract I have completed has had multiple weeks left before it expired. I don't load myself up with 4 contracts at a time - and always check the location of the contract (plus number of weeks allocated) before adding an additional contract to one I have already committed to. So with this in mind, your moving expiration would only rarely benefit me.

I'm probably one of the more cautious players out there though (when I play FPS games, I prefer scouting out every possible angle rather than storm in guns blazing). Others have a more aggressive contract-acceptance approach, so cutting contract expiry times down to the wire is more frequent - and therefore clicking on the wrong option could be the difference between success and failure.

One loophole exposed by moving contract expiration is if, for example you have a Palace kill contract, that you are able to do some urgent repairs - , increase morale in the spice hall, convert XP into skills, and buy weapons at the exchange before you take on the opponent. In reality, you could burn through multiple weeks doing all of this - and contracts don't extend their timeframes just because you aren't ready to complete it in time.