Bugs and Feature Requests for PlanetsCentral and other VGAP software

[Posting] Fuel Consumption and Minefield Reports
vlk
Thread opener
Posted Sun, 2016-06-12 20:40 GMT

Hi streu.

I enjoy playing the Privateer in Titan4. From time to time I do not run out of fuel at my waypoint as planned.

I already learned the hard way that PCC2 does not take into account the mass loss of a towee because of cloaking or cargo dumping. One feature request would be that fuel consumption prediction takes this into account. (Maybe with a second value in brackets as is already shown for the fuel consumption by cloaking.)

This turn I lost a ship, again because I did not run out of fuel at my waypoint. But this time I do not know why the ship still had some fuel. Maybe I hit a bug in the fuel consumption prediction of PCC2. The ship was repaired by a base in the same turn and also hit a mine, but both should have no effect on the fuel consumption (112kt). OK, on the other hand, it is just a *prediction*.

Two other small observations concerning minefields: - Minefields laid in the name of another player are often (always?) shown as own minefields in the turn when they are laid. This is only corrected one turn later, when they are scanned again. - Web mine fields are sometimes reported as regular mine fields.

Thanks for PCC and PCc!!! :smile:

[Posting] Re: Fuel Consumption and Minefield Reports
Posted Mon, 2016-06-13 16:36 GMT

I already learned the hard way that PCC2 does not take into account the mass loss of a towee because of cloaking or cargo dumping. One feature request would be that fuel consumption prediction takes this into account. (Maybe with a second value in brackets as is already shown for the fuel consumption by cloaking.)

This turn I lost a ship, again because I did not run out of fuel at my waypoint. But this time I do not know why the ship still had some fuel. Maybe I hit a bug in the fuel consumption prediction of PCC2. The ship was repaired by a base in the same turn and also hit a mine, but both should have no effect on the fuel consumption (112kt). OK, on the other hand, it is just a *prediction*.

I have no simple explanation for that.

The intended rule is that PCC2 should be able to predict everything that can be computed from the ship and its towee alone (i.e. no "lfm", but "NAL"). However, PCC 1.x's prediction is still better and I keep hitting gaps.

Two other small observations concerning minefields: - Minefields laid in the name of another player are often (always?) shown as own minefields in the turn when they are laid. This is only corrected one turn later, when they are scanned again. - Web mine fields are sometimes reported as regular mine fields.

Do you give PCC2 your util.dat or just the result? I have never seen that, but I'm giving my PCC2 the util.dat all the time. However, if you do NOT give that, it has to rely on information that is in the result, which is sometimes imprecise.

If you can give me a pointer (turn X in Titan 4, ship Y, minefield Z), I will take a look.


--Stefan

[Posting] Re: Fuel Consumption and Minefield Reports
Posted Mon, 2016-06-13 18:00 GMT

For the record, I have now updated PCC2's predictor. PCC 2.0.1 (soon) will predict the following:

  • mine laying mission (missing in 2.0 and before)
  • mkt/Build Torpedoes from cargo (missing in 2.0 and before)
  • alchemy
  • starbase "Fix" order
  • supply repair
  • cloak fuel burn
  • damage speed limit
  • movement incl. HYP
  • turn fuel usage (missing in 2.0 and before)

This will be done for the ship itself and a possible towee. (It helped that the logic to predict a towee was present in the source code, but not used.)

LPT: to check whether PCC2 takes a particular mission into account, turn it off and on again. If the fuel usage changes, it obviously takes part in the prediction :smile:


--Stefan

[Posting] Re: Fuel Consumption and Minefield Reports
vlk
Thread opener
Posted Tue, 2016-06-14 21:03 GMT

Do you give PCC2 your util.dat or just the result? I have never seen that, but I'm giving my PCC2 the util.dat all the time. However, if you do NOT give that, it has to rely on information that is in the result, which is sometimes imprecise.

If you can give me a pointer (turn X in Titan 4, ship Y, minefield Z), I will take a look.


--Stefan

Yes, I give it the util.dat and the result. Though, at some point I changed the language to new English. For example, minefield 238 is reported as my own minefield in Titan4 turn 80, although it was laid as EEs field.

I remember that e.g. web minefield 84 used to be reported as regular minefield around turn 61-64 in Titan4. Unfortunately, I cannot reproduce this issue in a fresh directory anymore.

For the record, I have now updated PCC2's predictor.

Great! :lol: If you want to confirm that the updated prediction is working in the above case: ship 356 turn 79-80.

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