KAHUNA is now open!

Mullog · Post by **Mullog** » Sun May 16, 2004 11:34 am

Its fixed!

NOW we should be ready to restart

Allister Fiend · Post by **Allister Fiend** » Sun May 16, 2004 1:12 pm

STOP! STOP! STOP!

I put an order in to move South, which it did the move south order but it moved me EAST!
Somethings already wrong!

Allister

Xarfei · Post by **Xarfei** » Sun May 16, 2004 1:41 pm

Same for me!

I tried to move North but moved West instead!

Post by **korexus** » Sun May 16, 2004 4:01 pm

You're both making one big assumption. Namely that north is upwards. Unfortunately this is not the case. Upwards is infact, East, towards the rising sun. If you keep that in mind everything should work out fine!

Seriously though, this was probably caused by the map rotation. and can probably be fixed without too much hassel. I'll try and find Rune...

korexus.

Post by **Donut** » Sun May 16, 2004 4:11 pm

You're backwards Kor. Up is West, down is East. I wondered when I read that if it was planned because they were both in the same direction.

Donut

Post by **Dameon** » Sun May 16, 2004 7:59 pm

Whoah, the standard convention is that North is up. North needs to be up. Anything else is just going to confuse players. Please let us know when this is fixed, thanks!

Mullog · Post by **Mullog** » Sun May 16, 2004 9:23 pm

Haha! It already is.
I had updated the map function so that it would work for all browsers, but while fixing I managed to break it. As a result it looked like the map was rotated, and it took a few attempts before I had corrected it.

Now it should be perfect though.

Underdog · Post by **Underdog** » Tue May 18, 2004 12:29 am

Your Brain Power of 1 allows you to store 25 Turns.
Cannot perform any default order!

If it is so perfect why did the game quit giving me skill points? I only have 44 but as soon as that crazy creator entered my square it quit working right.

Al, you broke your own game.

Allister Fiend · Post by **Allister Fiend** » Tue May 18, 2004 1:14 am

Mine says the same thing!

Allister

Lowebb · Post by **Lowebb** » Tue May 18, 2004 8:47 am

Not sure but I think I've found a bug. My default order is to 2. bank turns and 2. hunt plants.

I came in this morning to see when I had a full 25 banked turns it wouldnt perform my hunting default order sometimes, it refused to do it about 20 orders which doesnt make sense, Al you have access to my event log, have a look.

X-Wing

Mullog · Post by **Mullog** » Tue May 18, 2004 9:08 am

There was a problem when selecting default orders, but it has been fixed now.

thanks for letting me know!

Lowebb · Post by **Lowebb** » Tue May 18, 2004 10:26 am

Can you add the fertility I lost because of starvation back on again, since it wasnt my fault?

Underdog · Post by **Underdog** » Tue May 18, 2004 11:21 am

Well lets see turn 214 was the first turn it was screwed up.
Fixed on turn 266.
52 turns worth of skill points lost.

Well thats 1 cycle where I should have mutated that I didn't. maybe I could have gotten that BS2 I need in order to eat. This is not good. Oh well, guess I will have to hope to get it this time.

Post by **korexus** » Tue May 18, 2004 4:06 pm

Anonymous wrote:1. Rotation

Mullog wrote:...it looked like the map was rotated...
Seems that not only the map was "rotated" - the logs in 1 turn are also upside down, but only the one on the complete pages. When opening "Show all events" its well ordered.

Btw, I better liked the notation during the "rotated" map where rows are numbers and columns letters - somthing whats used in almost all cases u need to use such notations, for example in spredsheets...

Well, it's easy enough to change the lettering if people want...

2. Last cycle birth and death
The last cycle @turn 288 gave me 0 born and 9 died resulting a drop from 62 to 53 species with fertility of 1%. Is this by "the book"?

Looks fine. Specimen born is rounded down, so 1% of less than 100 won't help you I'm afraid...

Btw, seems a lot of people dropping in # of species. All inactive, having problem finding food, had same drop of specimens problem or all together?

I think that's due to starvation, so it links into...

3. Food
Related to the last point comment, we have some food problem on a small map, especially the size 1. Those who gained BS2 are now in a little advance, but that's the point of the game. Anyway - there is a problem when clearing the # of plants to 0 - it takes ages to get on a significant value to hunt again in that sector.

I sugest that # of plants should be 1000-6000 instead of 0-5000 - which means shifted for a minimum value under which it can't be hunted, but will result in faster regeneration. Maybe instead of showing shifted you can just calc the growth for a (1000 + current # of plants) basis. Just 2 methods of implementation the same idea.

There is an issue with this, partly it is due to the number of players on the map. With so many people, everyone eats their home square and moves on, meaning it's very hard for anyone to set up a "farm". This effect was intentional, but not to the degree we're seeing. We're talking about having fewer people on a map. maybe 30-40% instead of 50% of the squares being occupied. A higher starting plant count is always easy to do if it's needed too. The faster regeneration idea is an interesting one. (The minimum 1 of plant growth seems a bit useless imho.)

4. Preferred terain bonus
Also it seems that I get more born on unpreferred terains. Is the code for calculatiung preferred terain bonus OK?

I haven't noticed anything like that happening. Tell us who you are and we'll look into it!

korexus.

Post by **gm_al** » Tue May 18, 2004 4:33 pm

I see that many testers just looked into the game shortly but never cared to submit many orders.... so we see a few species dying a longish death now which influences the averages.

Balancing the plants and plant growth is tricky. Did u notice there are almost 40k of plants in the jungle now ? Hardly not enough to feed us all, just a matter to find them i guess.

Right now I am considering putting 10 (instead of 1) plants into a deserted square when they get eaten, as well as maybe lowering the number of players to 40% (7x7 = 49 squares = 20 Players). Still need to look further into this.

In the end it all depends on how active the players are. At least the BS2 value has risen now, and that makes sense to me.

Hamster · Post by **Hamster** » Tue May 18, 2004 4:57 pm

Sorry - didn't noticed it was sent as guest - wasn't logged in while on work. The big post is mine.

1. Rotation
Seems that not only the map was "rotated" - the logs in 1 turn are also upside down, but only the one on the complete pages. When opening "Show all events" its well ordered.

Btw, I better liked the notation during the "rotated" map where rows are numbers and columns letters - somthing whats used in almost all cases u need to use such notations, for example in spredsheets...
Well, it's easy enough to change the lettering if people want...

And whats up with different orders in the event logs?

2. Last cycle birth and death
The last cycle @turn 288 gave me 0 born and 9 died resulting a drop from 62 to 53 species with fertility of 1%. Is this by "the book"?
Looks fine. Specimen born is rounded down, so 1% of less than 100 won't help you I'm afraid...

Birth of 0 specimens is OK, but death of 9 isn't. Please check the manual (not the player one, so I can't talk in details here) how much must die for BS1 (the min and max %)!

4. Preferred terain bonus
Also it seems that I get more born on unpreferred terains. Is the code for calculatiung preferred terain bonus OK?
I haven't noticed anything like that happening. Tell us who you are and we'll look into it!

I noticed this behaviour during Everglades when I was eaten 5-6 times. Seems when I was on preffered terrains I got increase without the bonus and while on the unpreferred with it. You can check even the Kahuna logs to check if its OK.

Few additions:

5. Cause of extinction
When you get extinct - you don't know how you ended. No logs, no mentions... The old logs should be kept until you "respawn" (restart) and could be accessed from the page where it says that you're extinct.

6. Logs
Now we cant see further than 200 last entries. Why not get the previous also page by page?

7. BS maximum
Is any BS over 3 or 4 interesting? I don't think so. You get all colors as incompatible food, can't live from eating small species...

But you have to increase legs and arms. Again 1 vote for being able to choose the nextmutation, but

Will come soon with other things that can't fall on my mind right now.
Greetings,
Hamster

Post by **korexus** » Tue May 18, 2004 5:17 pm

Hi there, Hamster.

1) I have no idea, Rune probably knows, but if it works now maybe it's best not to ask!

2) This is ok. Please check the file "Changes list for WoK Species for v0.8" - As far as I am aware we don't have a dev manual that includes those changes yet, but the game engine does...
(Cue Al, to point out that as I'm posting here, I'm obviously not working and should therefore start updating the manual myself...)

4) I'll take a look.

5) See 2.

6) That's to save on load time. You should have a link saying "next page" which shows previous turns.

7)
a) Body Size 5 is quite possibly useful if there are several Body Size 4 predators about and therefore the others could come into play also. - It's always handy to be slightly bigger than the other guy. I don't think that in 3000 turns this will happen too often but it's handy to have the option around incase people want to play a longer 'marathon' type game.

b) Choosing Mutations makes life far too easy. I am totally against this. However I have been thinking over some form of systme wherby a player could weight the mutations, to give him a better chance of a specific choice. (- Random idea #63 b...)

korexus.

Hamster · Post by **Hamster** » Tue May 18, 2004 5:33 pm

korexus wrote:7)
a) Body Size 5 is quite possibly useful if there are several Body Size 4 predators about and therefore the others could come into play also. - It's always handy to be slightly bigger than the other guy.

Having a bigger BS than others doesn't help you to avoid being eaten - only the attackers won't get any saturation from you.

korexus wrote:b) Choosing Mutations makes life far too easy. I am totally against this. However I have been thinking over some form of systme wherby a player could weight the mutations, to give him a better chance of a specific choice. (- Random idea #63 b...)

I agree that it's too easy - but you have a big RND influence when you're able to choose. When someone gets BS2 before BP2 - he is slight in a worse position than the other species which gets it opposite.

On the other hand - if you're able to choose - you can make more
unforced tactics which can get the player show his qualities.

Another idea that tickles me some time (preciselly after being eaten 6 times) is to have a non-violent version of this game also. No attacks - just individual survival and fight for territory and plants. Not all potential players are agresive ones. It's wise to think in the future on the new (mobile) players and the growth of female players population who doesn't like violence.

Hamster

Mullog · Post by **Mullog** » Tue May 18, 2004 7:43 pm

Event logs and map rotation.
I also think that the letters should be on top. I am not sure exactly why they are not, but I think it was completely random. If nobody protest, I will change this after the current game is finished. Or maybe I should change it at random intervals? That would give me a definite advantage!

As for the event log being ordered different from the one on the main page, that was just me forgetting to change the sort order. I will fix it as soon as I get around to doing it...

Birth of 0 specimens is OK, but death of 9 isn't. Please check the manual (not the player one, so I can't talk in details here) how much must die for BS1 (the min and max %)!

A death of 9 is fine. We have changed the death percentages so that bigger animals live longer. At size 1 the death percentage varies around 15% I think, so 9 is just right!

The code for birth while on preferred terrain is correct. I think. Have you seen it in this game? If so, on which turn?

The event log is not deleted when you die anymore. That was a quite stupid feature!

You should be able to look further back in time by following the Next Page link. In addition we have added a simple filter that will show only "important" events. This will shorten the list alot.

Mullog