So I had an idea about the lag and a fix

[Space_void]

Now I was listening to montu plays latest video about the lag and the shape the game is in and I had a thought.

Why simulate the economy of AI players. No really. Why?

Why not create planet templates which create an ideal planet when the player gains or looks at the AI planet, populating pops based on species list from the empire? Instead of simulating the AI playing like a player why not create economy templates which have economy difficulty curves which are more inflexible, more set. We all already know the AI is cheating for resources when their planets look like jokes. So why not create templates of 'perfect' planets for when and IF the player interacts with them.

This way you will significantly reduce lag from all those calcs by them just not existing anymore. This way the AI just get resources based on the number of planets they own and it scales from there. From there they just raise the fleets needed to fill out the impression of a 'real' player. But behind it there are no pop calcs ergo no pops exist in the whole galaxy ONLY your own. The other pops exist in a state of potentiality, IE they exist if you access an AI planet or gain an AI planet but disappear when you leave.

You can have different sets of templates / resource curves based on the kind of civ and combination of ethics. No need to calculate huge sums pops contributing to an economy that doesn't work anyway!

Anyway this suggestion is made with the best possible intentions. Best of luck.

 

[MordridBlack]

The issue is that there is no one design fits all perfect setup for planets

Just looking at the base logic of planets, Dry worlds tend to have more energy districts, Wet worlds tend to have more food districts, and Cold worlds tend to have more mineral districts

That means each of those worlds would have a different possible perfect setup, and even then, the size of the world can overall affect how you build the world beyond that

And the above isn't factoring in any other world type [Gaia, Relic, Tomb, etc.]


In the end you could reasonably have probably a handful or more of "world" setups depending on a myriad of factors that all could be considered "perfect"

You'd likely create more lag trying to do all this extra stuff

 

[ALAKA1066]

The issue is that there is no one design fits all perfect setup for planets

Just looking at the base logic of planets, Dry worlds tend to have more energy districts, Wet worlds tend to have more food districts, and Cold worlds tend to have more mineral districts

That means each of those worlds would have a different possible perfect setup, and even then, the size of the world can overall affect how you build the world beyond that

And the above isn't factoring in any other world type [Gaia, Relic, Tomb, etc.]


In the end you could reasonably have probably a handful or more of "world" setups depending on a myriad of factors that all could be considered "perfect"

You'd likely create more lag trying to do all this extra stuff

I think as long it it were plausible it would be OKish. Right now we don't get anything close to optimal anyway! And creating a thousand templates is still easier than performance optimisation and making the AI actually smart

 

[Dayknight]

As far as I remember there was mod around this idea, give AI all-in-one job only and stop thinking about other AI management stuff. It slightly better mid game lags and AI can bring more ships in battle but it was basically cheat and give you useless planets when take their planets barren. But that doesn't reduce late game lag at all, since late game lag usually happens with path findings and ship modifiers, battles rather than pops.

 

[Space_void]

The issue is that there is no one design fits all perfect setup for planets

Just looking at the base logic of planets, Dry worlds tend to have more energy districts, Wet worlds tend to have more food districts, and Cold worlds tend to have more mineral districts

That means each of those worlds would have a different possible perfect setup, and even then, the size of the world can overall affect how you build the world beyond that

And the above isn't factoring in any other world type [Gaia, Relic, Tomb, etc.]


In the end you could reasonably have probably a handful or more of "world" setups depending on a myriad of factors that all could be considered "perfect"

You'd likely create more lag trying to do all this extra stuff

I'm not convinced that having a couple of hundred variations of AI planets which only appear when clicked on or conquered would create that much lag. Its not calculating anything each turn. Sure you might get lag when the system is choosing a planet to display but I would definitely choose a smooth as butter playtime with sporadic lag than a slow creep to lag oblivion.

Each one would be handcrafted, and frankly a couple of hundred isn't that much. Once you have all the pieces you could sculpt them and move on, each a variation for the type of world and the world output chosen. Mining, energy and soo on.

As far as I remember there was mod around this idea, give AI all-in-one job only and stop thinking about other AI management stuff. It slightly better mid game lags and AI can bring more ships in battle but it was basically cheat and give you useless planets when take their planets barren. But that doesn't reduce late game lag at all, since late game lag usually happens with path findings and ship modifiers, battles rather than pops.

100% agree. Its definitely ships. To solve that I think they would need to redesign ALL of the ship sets and reduce the number of polys they use. Even the old ones are too complex for the number of polys they use. The organic ship set is absurd, lags just in the viewer. Same with some of the recent shipsets. Completely crazy neglect of computer resources. They should be using ships that are much much more economical on detail, while using smart design approaches. For example:

Do you want a complex looking fin coming off your ship? Sure, just make a 4 vertices plane and use texture with see through material to create an edge which has the complexity you are looking for while being massively more economical. I've seen the same tactic used in total war games to make it easier for the engine to render models which look complex but really aren't. Unfortunately our artists here are giving their all and creating such smooth high poly models the game is lagging out the wazoo.

But this would be a radical change but I think it would help. Someone has to test mod removing all models from ship sets and just trading in low poly models to see if it helps to any degree.

 

[Dayknight]

100% agree. Its definitely ships. To solve that I think they would need to redesign ALL of the ship sets and reduce the number of polys they use. Even the old ones are too complex for the number of polys they use. The organic ship set is absurd, lags just in the viewer. Same with some of the recent shipsets. Completely crazy neglect of computer resources. They should be using ships that are much much more economical on detail, while using smart design approaches. For example:

Do you want a complex looking fin coming off your ship? Sure, just make a 4 vertices plane and use texture with see through material to create an edge which has the complexity you are looking for while being massively more economical. I've seen the same tactic used in total war games to make it easier for the engine to render models which look complex but really aren't. Unfortunately our artists here are giving their all and creating such smooth high poly models the game is lagging out the wazoo.

But this would be a radical change but I think it would help. Someone has to test mod removing all models from ship sets and just trading in low poly models to see if it helps to any degree.

Eh that can be helped, but what I'm saying is things like battle take lot of calculation even without rendering, also it need to be done in every tick, which take lot of resource. Currently I'm trying to find what is root problem by observing games, what I found is 1st day(calcuation of income and pop growth) take 1 second in 136 years, but with 4.0 introduce federation now can be done without diplomacy tradition in 2250 already there is 3 federation(each consist of 2 nation) and when each federation drag into war each day become slower and slower with every war(battle especially).

 

[masteriw]

What happens when you conquer a planet?

 

[grommile]

What happens when you conquer a planet?

OP mentions this very briefly – some kind of handwave where you just have a pile of planet templates ready to drop into place if a human acquires a planet that currently belongs to a bot.

 

[MordridBlack]

I'm not convinced that having a couple of hundred variations of AI planets which only appear when clicked on or conquered would create that much lag. Its not calculating anything each turn. Sure you might get lag when the system is choosing a planet to display but I would definitely choose a smooth as butter playtime with sporadic lag than a slow creep to lag oblivion.

Each one would be handcrafted, and frankly a couple of hundred isn't that much. Once you have all the pieces you could sculpt them and move on, each a variation for the type of world and the world output chosen. Mining, energy and so on.

Think of it this way

The AI will choose, likely via a random assignment tool, what "preset" to use when they colonize a world

If there are a hundred, that is a lot of data to go through


Then you have to also figure in, will the AI have the ability to change what "preset" they use [because these presets would also need to be accessible to the player]

The AI are well known for being stupid...what is to stop them from, oh I don't know...changing that "preset" constantly other than a resource flag and a timer to make that change

And if they can keep doing that over and over, each time going through a hundred "presets" on every world they have colonized