RNG woes

[Psycholis]

played 4 games consecutively tonight.. first game had a charon stronghold in system 3. died. 2nd game didn't get a targeting rom ever.. died 3 past st. ks. 3rd game i was stuck with a non-colimitted omni-laser (non-turbo) and no decent omni weapons at all.. both the rassiermessiers had akan-30s and no 600s. last game i got a defective weapon rom and a defective sheild rom both in a row AND the best armor i could find was ceralloy. not sure if i'm just REALLY unlucky or what.. some games i get the targetting w/ regen, 4 plates of carbide, an omni-party and mark 3 all before st ks. makes for interesting playthroughs, but also frustrating.

[Blitz]

played 4 games consecutively tonight.. first game had a charon stronghold in system 3. died. 2nd game didn't get a targeting rom ever.. died 3 past st. ks. 3rd game i was stuck with a non-colimitted omni-laser (non-turbo) and no decent omni weapons at all.. both the rassiermessiers had akan-30s and no 600s. last game i got a defective weapon rom and a defective sheild rom both in a row AND the best armor i could find was ceralloy. not sure if i'm just REALLY unlucky or what.. some games i get the targetting w/ regen, 4 plates of carbide, an omni-party and mark 3 all before st ks. makes for interesting playthroughs, but also frustrating.

It's all part of the game. Try using fast firing nonomni weapons if you can't find good omni weapons for the freighter if you can't find good omni ones...and if you can't find a good shield/armor then suck the early systems dry till you get a LOT of credits, and then run til st.ks. It usually has good stocks. You get a SRSenhancer rom for the first korolev promotion and you get a targetting rom if you let the korolev station get destroyed and then go destroy all the charon strongholds + fortress. If your armor's too weak to take on the fortress, then skip it, go to st.ks or one or two systems beyond. Try finding an adventure outfitters...

[Prophet]

I am also finding the RNG dips wildly and soars just as wildy. My last playthrough was pathetic, I was glad I did in Charon (of course I was using WE on hard but that's besides the point)
My current game (with WE on hard again) I just recently got a targeting rom and managed to find a reactor that can support my quasi 5T and Omni-party popper. By the third system I had 2 ice farms, 4 fuel depots and a hotel. Very few places to buy things (I found the O.P.P. and used my trade surplus to buy the quasi and reactor) I just started charon and managed to save it (for once) so I'd say this play is a win so far.

[Wurmish]

The RNG is indeed part of the fun, but what if a new user comes along and is struck with horrible luck? Will they know that it's luck, or would they think it's a horrifically difficult game? Or rigged?

I know it sounds a little... off, but I don't suppose there's a way to make the RNG a little more 'user-friendly'? E.g. making playthroughs slightly more predictable? Or, as I'm suspecting, is that too much work since virtually everything is randomly generated?

[schilcote]

Or maybe let Transcendence count how many times the player has hit "new game" and for the first two games maybe fudge the numbers a bit?

[Darth Saber]

1. What is a RNG?

2. I got as far as the system with the Sanctuary gate in it, when I received this error message, which causes the program to crash every time.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
01/13/2010 15:56:18 Unable to continue due to program error

program state: updating object behavior
obj class: CShip
obj name: Atonement-class heavy gunship
obj pointer: 2549a90
CStandardShipAI
Order: 3
m_State: 30
m_pDest: none
m_pTarget: 256f300 Hetep-class Battle Cruiser (CShip)
m_pNavPath: none
game state: in game

Please contact [email protected] with a copy of Debug.log.
We are sorry for the inconvenience.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The weird part is that this happens in this system randomly; I can load the game, play for a while, save the game, resume - then after it crashes, I can do it again: reload, play some more, save the game, then resume; in a while it will crash... I even gated to the Sanctuary system, but the problem followed me there too; always the same error. And here is something that isn't even funny: as soon as this error showed up in RC4, I switched to RC3 and found that I was no longer able to buy or sell anything, and that had not happened before. Both versions are in separate folders. Now is this a quirk, or am I just being unlucky? Note: yes I did post this to BugTracker along with a screenshot.

[Aury]

Random Number Generator.
The problem with RNG's is that the numbers and probabilities can be theoretically balanced, but that is only when the sample size is approaching infinity, and since a game contains only a very small, finite number of station spawns (in the hundreds?) and only thousands of item spawns, the sample size is both finite and infinitesimally small, and thus upper and lower bounds on the RNG must be in place.
Personally, I find these bounds to be a bit too spacious, but allows the game to get 'close enough' to acceptable balance.

[Psycholis]

while the rng is rough i do like that there's 'checkpoints' in the game for building up. usually rigel has at least 1 or 2 armor and weapon outlets as well as one hotel and a few corporate enclaves. after that, it's the charon/st. k mix but sometimes st. ks has either no armor or no weapon dealer. i've noticed that they get a bushido every now and then to get a full set of carbide (imo, the best armor til ares), but my last playthrough only had 2 plates of it.. gosuko is okay, but if you find heavy blast w/ particle, it's better. i don't know if there's a system past st. ks that acts as a checkpoint.. is it sanctuary? i define it as a system with a clear concentration of friendly bases with outlying enemies in the far system. not sure if anything past st. ks meets that description, haven't gotten that far in RC4 yet.

[Atarlost]

There are no guaranteed friendly stations after St. K except some military stuff that has no shopping.

[Prophet]

Sanctuary, and Eta Ceti are both static systems that potentially could become either friendly checkpoints or plot advancement systems like Point Juno.

In the late game you must rely on the RNG to provide ample Ringer shipyards and/or black market shipyards for device installation and armor repair. Taikon only provides weapon install/uninstall. The CSCs provide some device install/uninstall for level 9 equipment and repair lvl 10 armor. Of course, they are useless unless you have a Military ID. Huari don't have anything (and occasionally, there are not enough sung to make the huari friendly)

[digdug]

2. I got as far as the system with the Sanctuary gate in it, when I received this error message, which causes the program to crash every time.

Darth Saber, that error seems to be related to Weapons Extended mod (in the log you posted in the tracker there was the loaded mods list), so it's my problem and not of Transcendence iteself.

It happens every time a ship with multiple weapons attack another ship. (mainly when there is a secondary weapon like the NAMI launcher, like in this case with the Atonement-class heavy gunship)

In version 3.17 (latest version on Xelerus) I think I manged to resolve the bug.
Please download the latest version and tell me if you still get the bug:
http://xelerus.de/index.php?s=mod&id=612

[EDIT] btw, the version is compatible with the previous versions, so you can still use your savegame.

[Darth Saber]

Thanks, Digdug; I'll download it immediately.

[Psycholis]

RNG woes RC8 style. i've now completely mapped out my entire game. from eridani to heretic - all systems explored. i found 3 corporate trading posts through out all that. i ordered 3 patcher arms from each of those trading posts. every single one was destroyed in a single attack from a ventari cruiser. i literally screamed at my computer. it's like i got hit by 3 yellow ion things and each and every one homed in on my patcher arms. now i have no means of renerating my armor. this is so extremely frustrating. there was maybe 1 patch spider that i saw about midway so i'm going to try and find it, but those are so fragile as well.. i guess that's the price to pay for having infinitely recharging armor.. cannot even believe how mad i was that they would all go down in one single attack.

[hookoa]

I find in most games that I can't equip my ship to fight the Ventari until I'm past their space. In my last encounter with them (using freighter), they punched through my shields, then first hit damaged my akan 600, second hit damaged my SN2500 (200MW), third hit damaged my plasma shield generator, fourth hit did nothing, and fifth hit damaged the howitzer. By the time I got out of range, the only thing I had left was a patch spider and weapons in the hold to replace all the broken junk.

Ventari are a lot beefier than I remember from pre-1.0 versions. The pteracnium loot is nice, but It would be nice to occasionally find a working reactor on them to replace the ones lost by the stupid device-damage weapon.

PS. Patch spiders are better than patcher arms because you can store them for battle and only use them when it's safe.

[Psycholis]

i never really thought about patch spiders that way.. a good counter i'm finding now is to go with octocarbide, which is cheaper and more readily available than heavy ithalium, and has ion damage immunity. it's not as beefy as ithalium, but it's enough. the taikon sheilds take care of most thermo damage anyway. in fact, the whole taikon setup makes for a great end game.