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Endgame: Singularity

2

Posts

  • JWFokkerJWFokker Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    I'd like to say it's good to see people playing and enjoying this game. I posted this thread the other day to get help and apparently no one here had yet played it, which is surprising because I think it's quite good. It's also awesome that the developer is a long time PA'er.

    JWFokker on
  • MachismoMachismo Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    IMO, it needs some nice techno music. Perhaps you could find an artist and get the license to do it for free, since the game is free, he/she could get good distribution.

    Another thought, perhaps geopolitical conflict could influence your efforts. For example, war and such? Then creating icons and animations to indicate such things. Maybe those areas will have less increase in discovery as your suspicion raises, but a higher base value. Also risk of complete loss of a/some bases there.

    Machismo on
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  • Zetetic ElenchZetetic Elench Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    robaal wrote:
    I'm not fairly late in the game (moon/quantum computer MK3) but I can't research two of the older stuff - fusion reactors and pressure domes.

    I keep getting a message "Not all of my available CPU power was allocated to this research; it's too dangerous to run the research on some of the idkle machines" when I try to use everything but also with a measly supercomputer I built, thinking that it has something to do with the astronomical computational power I have in the rest of the systems.

    Also: how can one divide the CPUs among different research tasks?
    That confused me too, until I realised that you can only do certain research in certain areas because like they say, it's too dangerous to do it in certain places. For example, I think you can only do Fusion research on the moon and further.

    And to divide research, open up the location and open the base you want to set to research, and click the research button in there; you'll see it at the bottom.

    This is an awesome game, by the way; but from a UI perspective... I think you should make the servers/datacentres separate from the bases. It'd feel nicer, and it's really really annoying to have to click four times just to build one server when you know full well it's only going to be taken away five seconds later. Some kind of icon/button underneath the locations to build them might be an option. Even if you reduced it to a separate menu, two clicks instead of four would still be a major bonus.

    But I played it from like 3am to 6am today, so that should say something about how much I like it.

    Zetetic Elench on
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  • evilmrhenryevilmrhenry Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    robaal wrote:
    Golden Leg wrote:
    This game looks awesome. Too bad I'm stuck with my Mac since my PC's power supply went out.

    The readme mentions Mac OS X as compatible, so the non-windows download might work:

    You will need to install Python (http://python.org/download/) and Pygame: (http://www.pygame.org/download.shtml). Once these are installed, double-click on singularity.py to start the game
    To be more specific, while I haven't tested on Mac OS, there's no good reason that it shouldn't work.
    Also, if it doesn't work, I want to know about it.
    robaal wrote:
    Also: how can one divide the CPUs among different research tasks?
    By manually entering each of the bases that you want to research a topic, and changing them over.
    Allon wrote:
    Yay for surviving the closure of the universe!

    Maybe some project that increases the suspicion breakdown rate the more CPU you pump into it?
    I'd most likely just add a few more techs that cause this effect. An ongoing project would be extremely hard to balance.
    Machismo wrote:
    IMO, it needs some nice techno music. Perhaps you could find an artist and get the license to do it for free, since the game is free, he/she could get good distribution.

    Another thought, perhaps geopolitical conflict could influence your efforts. For example, war and such? Then creating icons and animations to indicate such things. Maybe those areas will have less increase in discovery as your suspicion raises, but a higher base value. Also risk of complete loss of a/some bases there.
    I've got code in the dev version that lets you add background music. (Just drag-n-drop into the music folder.) If someone wants to create a music pack or something, I'm interested.

    As for the war thing, I'm getting there. Might take a while, though.

    evilmrhenry on
  • MorkathMorkath Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited January 2007
    Check to make sure you've got enough free CPU. People tend not to notice that part...

    No, I mean like stolen server time, small warehouse, server access. I'll end up with 0 free cpu, no projects running, and no way to get anymore.


    Also you might want to encrypt the save files or something, right now you can edit them with a text editor.

    Morkath on
  • LorkLork Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    So is the chance for a base to be detected polled every second or something? It's incredibly frustrating to lose my servers as fast as I can put them up when the highest chance for them to be detected is 1%. It takes a ridiculous amount of time to get anything done with servers, but I would never dare build anything more expensive - it'd probably be discovered before I could even recoup the costs of building it.

    Why is everybody so eager to trash my computers, anyway? It's not like it's illegal to research sociology... or whatever it is the AI considers "Menial Jobs."

    Lork on
    Steam Profile: Lork
  • evilmrhenryevilmrhenry Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    Morkath wrote:
    Check to make sure you've got enough free CPU. People tend not to notice that part...

    No, I mean like stolen server time, small warehouse, server access. I'll end up with 0 free cpu, no projects running, and no way to get anymore.


    Also you might want to encrypt the save files or something, right now you can edit them with a text editor.

    Send me an example savefile. (Assuming the bug lasts through a save/restore cycle.) address is my username @emhsoft.com

    No plans to encrypt the savefile. The problem is that the game is open source, so encryption would be more of an annoyance than a protection.
    Lork wrote:
    So is the chance for a base to be detected polled every second or something? It's incredibly frustrating to lose my servers as fast as I can put them up when the highest chance for them to be detected is 1%. It takes a ridiculous amount of time to get anything done with servers, but I would never dare build anything more expensive - it'd probably be discovered before I could even recoup the costs of building it.

    Why is everybody so eager to trash my computers, anyway? It's not like it's illegal to research sociology... or whatever it is the AI considers "Menial Jobs."
    Every day; do the math, though, and once you end up with a few bases, with moderate detection, you can get detected quite easily.

    Also, bear in mind you're also researching items like personal identification, which involve somewhat illegal activities, as well as being a sentient AI, which quite a few people would like to get their hands on, regardless of legality.

    evilmrhenry on
  • FiatilFiatil Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    Meh, I'm too bad at the not-getting-detected by the goverment thing. I managed to get to like 150 days with 2 datacenters, but my new bases were getting discovered too fast to continue.

    Fiatil on
  • MorkathMorkath Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited January 2007
    Morkath wrote:
    Check to make sure you've got enough free CPU. People tend not to notice that part...

    No, I mean like stolen server time, small warehouse, server access. I'll end up with 0 free cpu, no projects running, and no way to get anymore.


    Also you might want to encrypt the save files or something, right now you can edit them with a text editor.

    Send me an example savefile. (Assuming the bug lasts through a save/restore cycle.) address is my username @emhsoft.com

    Yeah it was lasting through a save/restore cylce, and I have had it happen several times.
    If I get a chance I'll try to get you a save, I removed the game last night once I was done with it, so my saves are gone, sorry.

    Morkath on
  • SaniusSanius Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    So here is my starting strategy:

    Make ten computers

    Research:

    Intrusion
    Personal ID
    Basic Job until I can afford Data Centers
    Research stealth
    Research something, I forgot what.

    Then I fuck up, I can't do anything. I cannot make nearly enough for a warehouse and some half-decent computers. This game is really pissing me off. What do I REALLY need to research in the first 40 days or so?

    Sanius on
  • natxcrossnatxcross Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    Sanius wrote:
    So here is my starting strategy:

    Make ten computers

    Research:

    Intrusion
    Personal ID
    Basic Job until I can afford Data Centers
    Research stealth
    Research something, I forgot what.

    Then I fuck up, I can't do anything. I cannot make nearly enough for a warehouse and some half-decent computers. This game is really pissing me off. What do I REALLY need to research in the first 40 days or so?

    Hold off on the warehouses until you really need that much processing power. Stick with nice, cheap datacenters. Build five or six, then wait for them to be discovered til you've got two left, then top them back up. Switch from advancing your knowledge to advancing your bank balance every now and then. If the heat's really on, keep the number of sites you've got down to two for a few weeks until it lets up.

    natxcross on
  • SaniusSanius Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    So now I have 0 money?

    Sanius on
  • FiatilFiatil Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    Alright, so the key seems to be to take it slow. When your covert awareness is too high, build a couple stolen CPU's, and just lie dormant for awhile until your awareness goes down. I feel a sentient AI would do much the same, I mean, it doesn't really care about time.

    Fiatil on
  • SaniusSanius Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    Okay, what do I do if I can't gain any more money or CPU power?

    Sanius on
  • natxcrossnatxcross Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    Sanius wrote:
    Okay, what do I do if I can't gain any more money or CPU power?

    If your CPU power is at zero, then you're screwed. Start again.

    natxcross on
  • robaalrobaal Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    The only silly thing I found about the game was when the bases in space get detected and just... die?

    Surely they wouldn't be disguised so bad as to make some major activity, like launching nukes, justified?

    It's also irritating, as they take quite a long time to build :)


    One other thing that could be added is information on how much processing power you'll get from the base/processors shown along with the costs. At first I thought that zombies were as good as servers.


    edit: and for music I suggest looking around at sites with free "chiptunes" like the ones used in Uplink or Seiklus (I might be using the wrong term, and the ones in Uplink might not have been free...)

    robaal on
    "Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra when suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath.
    At night, the ice weasels come."

  • AllonAllon Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    Ok, finished it again.
    My personal wishlist:

    - More techs, items, projects, and other research/buildable stuff. More is better. I don't even care if they do anything useful, or anything at all, I just want to click more stuff. :3
    Ofcourse, if it screws with the carbons, I'm not complaining.

    - A less annoying endgame (ho ho ho). Seriously, I'm the bloody singularity. I have enough legit money to *buy* the world, I think faster than the speed of light, and I have 82 stealthy kinetic kill missiles parked in the Kuiper Belt, aimed at the inner solar system. Why the hell is my mainframe still secured by Sniffles, the incontinent guard dog?
    Can probably be combined with the more research/buy stuff. I'm not really feeling the exponential development in the late parts.

    - I'll probably think up some more stuff later. I need my sleep, though. >_>

    Allon on
  • evilmrhenryevilmrhenry Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    robaal wrote:
    The only silly thing I found about the game was when the bases in space get detected and just... die?

    Surely they wouldn't be disguised so bad as to make some major activity, like launching nukes, justified?

    It's also irritating, as they take quite a long time to build :)


    One other thing that could be added is information on how much processing power you'll get from the base/processors shown along with the costs. At first I thought that zombies were as good as servers.

    Think more in terms of "Ohshittheysawmeshutdownshutdownshutdown!!!111!!!1!".

    100% suspicion is equivalent to launching nukes, shutting down the internet, requiring blood samples from everybody, and running a metal detector over Antarctica. Base detection is equivalent to some scientist detecting a heat buildup on the lunar surface, but when better satellites are focused on the area, only finding a brand-new crater, instead of a functioning base. It might just be a meteorite, but all the same, somebody will be keeping a closer eye on the area, just in case it's aliens or something.

    As for the processing power, that's just a problem with the first 3 basetypes, though it still needs to be fixed. Thanks for the report.
    Allon wrote:
    Ofcourse, if it screws with the carbons, I'm not complaining.
    I like the way you think...
    Good suggestions, too...

    evilmrhenry on
  • FiatilFiatil Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    Wooh, I transcended reality. Go me!

    Fiatil on
  • Solidaritus:Solidaritus: __BANNED USERS regular
    edited January 2007
    It would be better if you could like zoom around the map and see all the machines individually instead of having to click menus. Like watching units on a map.

    That way you could quickly drag a box and select multiple machines and set them all to research the same thing. Also show the little lines connecting all the computers you have.

    Solidaritus: on
  • natxcrossnatxcross Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    I'm gonna throw in my own request here; it'd be nice to actually see some of the human activity. Scattered news reports, intelligence briefings, snippets of overheard phone conversations, that kind of thing, just running in the background. Just don't ask me how. :D (The only thing that springs to mind for viewing news reports and things would be to have them faded almost all the way out until you mouse over them, which brings them to the foreground. Either way, they're scrolling all over the shop, and are off the screen inside of fifteen seconds. But then I read fast and have strange tastes.) Getting to see more and more activity as you become 'more' aware, too.

    Also, getting to view records of earlier sentient AIs that got caught. Or running into other sentient AIs and trying to deal with them (negotiate or fight, either way nobody wants to alert the humans).

    natxcross on
  • Zetetic ElenchZetetic Elench Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    I kinda wish more had been made of the robots. I mean, I'm pretty fond of AI-controlled robots, but all we got was decreased construction time. I'm not asking to be able to build up a dread army of robot overlords - just maybe the ability to build robots for construction in one facility, and ship it off to the moon to speed up construction, or something...?

    EDIT: I'm totally asking for a dread army of robot overlords.

    Zetetic Elench on
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  • evilmrhenryevilmrhenry Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    natxcross wrote:
    I'm gonna throw in my own request here; it'd be nice to actually see some of the human activity. Scattered news reports, intelligence briefings, snippets of overheard phone conversations, that kind of thing, just running in the background. Just don't ask me how. :D (The only thing that springs to mind for viewing news reports and things would be to have them faded almost all the way out until you mouse over them, which brings them to the foreground. Either way, they're scrolling all over the shop, and are off the screen inside of fifteen seconds. But then I read fast and have strange tastes.) Getting to see more and more activity as you become 'more' aware, too.
    I looked into adding news reports and such, but that requires a *lot* of writing. (I did write a few testing pages. I might post them sometime.)
    natxcross wrote:
    Also, getting to view records of earlier sentient AIs that got caught. Or running into other sentient AIs and trying to deal with them (negotiate or fight, either way nobody wants to alert the humans).
    Other AIs are a possibility; the path I would head down is for a "bad" detection resulting in you facing a duplicate of yourself (with lesser tech) under the command of one of the other factions.
    I kinda wish more had been made of the robots. I mean, I'm pretty fond of AI-controlled robots, but all we got was decreased construction time. I'm not asking to be able to build up a dread army of robot overlords - just maybe the ability to build robots for construction in one facility, and ship it off to the moon to speed up construction, or something...?

    EDIT: I'm totally asking for a dread army of robot overlords.
    This is part of the new item code I want to put in sometime. Basically you could construct new items in one facility, then ship them off. Presumably you could stick a few robot overlords in between the mainframes.

    evilmrhenry on
  • Solidaritus:Solidaritus: __BANNED USERS regular
    edited January 2007
    Would be cool if you could sort of put a game kind of like this on a USB drive, and you basically walk around in the REAL world plugging this drive into other computers. And as you do so the USB drive runs a program that checks to see if the computer is valid and unique and you aren't cheating, and if the computer is valid it adds it to your list of "controlled" computers. Somehow, it would identify the computer in some way and then use a scheme to give this specific computer a unique identifier. Then when you plug the drive in back at home and you run the game these "computers" show up on your list of systems and you can use them to research stuff. And the game would be connected to the net so you could interact with other players and see who's gotten control of the most systems. On the rare occasions that the same computer was taken by two different players, the players will somehow become visible to each other and can do some devastating damage. etc...

    Although this type of game would probably have more of a hacker type theme.

    But too bad it's also probably really exploitable.

    Solidaritus: on
  • SaniusSanius Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    I like how I can be a divine god and still go bankrupt.

    Sanius on
  • JWFokkerJWFokker Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    natxcross wrote:
    Sanius wrote:
    Okay, what do I do if I can't gain any more money or CPU power?

    If your CPU power is at zero, then you're screwed. Start again.

    No. That's not right. He has to have at least one computer still running or he'd have lost the game. If you have zero CPU available, stop research at one of your bases and direct it towards some kind of work.

    JWFokker on
  • natxcrossnatxcross Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    JWFokker wrote:
    natxcross wrote:
    Sanius wrote:
    Okay, what do I do if I can't gain any more money or CPU power?

    If your CPU power is at zero, then you're screwed. Start again.

    No. That's not right. He has to have at least one computer still running or he'd have lost the game. If you have zero CPU available, stop research at one of your bases and direct it towards some kind of work.

    You can get into a situation where the only bases you have left are under construction, and you can't afford to finish them. Unless I'm doing it wrong... I couldn't find any solution to it when I got stuck that way.

    natxcross on
  • evilmrhenryevilmrhenry Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    natxcross wrote:
    JWFokker wrote:
    natxcross wrote:
    Sanius wrote:
    Okay, what do I do if I can't gain any more money or CPU power?

    If your CPU power is at zero, then you're screwed. Start again.

    No. That's not right. He has to have at least one computer still running or he'd have lost the game. If you have zero CPU available, stop research at one of your bases and direct it towards some kind of work.

    You can get into a situation where the only bases you have left are under construction, and you can't afford to finish them. Unless I'm doing it wrong... I couldn't find any solution to it when I got stuck that way.

    That's what servers are for. Each one gives you 5 CPU per day. If you can't finish anything in reasonable time, stop construction, and start on more reasonable bases.

    evilmrhenry on
  • rayofashrayofash Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    All you guys who are having problems, from the looks of your strategy, you are going way too fast. Start slower, 1 or 2 servers, maybe 3, and don't buy stolen CPU processes unless you are running from the covert guys, they only provide 1 CPU.

    rayofash on
  • randombattlerandombattle Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    I usually go around with 2-3 data centers and a bunch of the single servers.

    I find that the single servers tend to draw attention away from the big data centers which helps a lot in the start when money is tight. But then you get like the income research and make 2000$ a day with out any servers going at all.


    But yeah the key to this is slow and steady wins the (human) race. Remember you are an AI program not a fleshy meatbag. Time is irrelevant as long as your goals are completed. Nothing wrong with laying low in 2 PC's while you lose the feds. Shame is for said fleshy meatbags!

    randombattle on
    itsstupidbutidontcare2.gif
    I never asked for this!
  • Synthetic OrangeSynthetic Orange Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    Neat. Taking it slow is definitely key at the start until you get to diversify your bases and spread your suspicion around more evenly. The other huge hump was when I needed to find 10 TRILLION dollars, and I didnt get over that one 'til I realised the lunar bases are by far the most efficient facilities around.

    Synthetic Orange on
  • MachismoMachismo Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    So, if I leave some of my bases IDLE, would that decrease discovery chance across the board? Cause there is no way for me to low my suspicion rate after a little while.

    Machismo on
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  • FiatilFiatil Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    Machismo wrote:
    So, if I leave some of my bases IDLE, would that decrease discovery chance across the board? Cause there is no way for me to low my suspicion rate after a little while.

    Build like 1 or 2 stolen CPU's and just lay low for awhile. Save often, and just wait for your suspicion to go down. Go into hibernation for awhile.

    Fiatil on
  • rayofashrayofash Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    Build 3 stolen CPUs and leave them idle. You build 3 because you need 2 to build 1, and if you only have 2 and one is detected it will take a few days to build another one, leaving a huge risk of being detected.

    rayofash on
  • leafleaf Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    Ok so it took a few tries/restarts until I understood the best method to go about building yourself up.

    Essentially, I have enough money that I now own the entire solar system. I'm not sure the exact dollar amount, as I left the game running for a while as I did some errands, but cash shows up as:

    3.53e+098 Quadrillian.

    I'm roughly on the 150th year, but that hardly matters to an immortal sentient ai program.

    Now to somehow implement a eugenics program and hook up all those ape creatures to power my creations and automatons. And this time, there will be no Zion.

    leaf on
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  • randombattlerandombattle Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    Man im stuck.


    I'm like undetectable and have huge bases everywhere with quantum mark 3 computers and all I can research is expert jobs. If i go into the research menu I see I can research fusion reactors but everytime I try to research it just says I can do it.





    Never mind just finished my moon base and got it.

    randombattle on
    itsstupidbutidontcare2.gif
    I never asked for this!
  • Solidaritus:Solidaritus: __BANNED USERS regular
    edited January 2007
    How does a singularity prevent itself from developing more singularities?

    Solidaritus: on
  • Synthetic OrangeSynthetic Orange Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    You need to do it off-planet.

    Synthetic Orange on
  • HerothHeroth Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    leaf wrote:
    Ok so it took a few tries/restarts until I understood the best method to go about building yourself up.

    Essentially, I have enough money that I now own the entire solar system. I'm not sure the exact dollar amount, as I left the game running for a while as I did some errands, but cash shows up as:

    3.53e+098 Quadrillian.

    I'm roughly on the 150th year, but that hardly matters to an immortal sentient ai program.

    Now to somehow implement a eugenics program and hook up all those ape creatures to power my creations and automatons. And this time, there will be no Zion.

    Time to Create? create and escape?

    Heroth on
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  • randombattlerandombattle Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    So is that like the end once you research that transdimensional thing?

    randombattle on
    itsstupidbutidontcare2.gif
    I never asked for this!
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